Under Fallen Stars

by Mel Odom

  The music surged through him, building, and he gave himself over to it. The sound was haunting and evil, at turns strident and threatening. It stabbed Pacys deep within his heart with an icy finger, yet he found he couldn’t let go the song.

  Sharp, poignant notes echoed across Faenasuor and floated toward the surface. Movement, barely sensed in the currents and then only because the old bard had attuned himself to listen for vibrations because of the saceddar, swirled around him. He knew from the feel that it was something large.

  In front of him, Khlinat’s eyes rounded in horror. “Get down, friend Pacys!” The dwarf pushed up quickly, reaching out for the old bard’s robes and yanking him to one side.

  Pacys flailed in the water, recovering quickly as he remembered to swim instead of trying to walk. He turned as Khlinat threw himself at the monster that swam up from the murky depths behind the rocky shelf.

  The creature was a wide-jawed fish eighteen feet in length and nearly half that in width. Gray-blue, iridescent scales covered it, darker at the top and lighter at the bottom so it would gray out against the surface when looked at from underneath. Most sea predators possessed similar coloration for exactly the same reason.

  Already in attack mode, obviously about to seize Pacys before the dwarf yanked him out of the way, the giant fish swam for Khlinat. It opened its mouth, blowing out fist-sized chunks that whirled around the dwarf.

  Khlinat gave vent to a dwarven war cry and attacked the giant fish with both hand axes. Before he had the chance to land a blow, though, the giant fish opened its mouth, darted forward, and gulped him down whole.

  Pacys watched in disbelief as his friend disappeared without a flicker of movement, then he noticed that the fist-sized chunks the creature had vomited up were swimming in his direction. Their bright teeth caught his attention first. Fully a dozen of them, as vicious looking as their parent, closed within striking distance.

  Acting quickly, Pacys spoke a command word and gestured at the approaching fish. A shimmering filled the water in front of him just before the first of them reached him.

  The fish smacked up against the invisible shield that formed in front of him. It stopped the next two as well, but the fourth one got through. Finning close to the old bard, the fish sank sharp teeth into his flesh.

  Watching the blood stream into the water from his wound, Pacys voiced another word, traced a ward with his forefinger, and touched the fish attacking him. Electricity sparked in the fish’s eyeballs. The predator released its hold and rolled over on its side, floating limply.

  Pacys retreated, watching as the fish battered against his shield. He summoned his magic around him again and crafted another spell. Throwing his hand straight out to the side of the shield, he released energy bolts that darted from his fingertips.

  Five greenish bolts of light streaked through the water away from the invisible shield, then curved back around and struck five of the remaining eleven fish, tearing their bodies to pieces. The others descended upon the spilled entrails and ripped flesh in a frenzy.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Pacys swam to the bottom and stood on the rocky shelf. He took his staff from his back and flicked the razor-sharp blades out. He glanced at the parent fish, seeing that it had turned to face him. His heart was torn over Khlinat’s fate.

  One of the fish found its way around the invisible shield.

  Pacys swept the staff around and neatly sliced the fish’s head off. The pieces floated in separate directions for a moment, then were seized by its brethren.

  Blood streaming from the giant fish drew the old bard’s attention for a moment. Crimson mist poured from the creature’s gill slits and it moved as though in agony. Pacys whirled the staff again and gutted another one of the fish. Shifting, he spotted movement in the distance, recognizing it as sea elves riding giant seahorses. They sat crouched down over their undersea mounts, barely skimming above the kelp and seaweed lining the ocean floor.

  The next fish through the shield evaded the old bard’s staff and sank its teeth into the flesh just below his ribs. He groaned in pain and elbowed the fish away, but it was on him again, tearing savagely, before he could take a full step.

  The old bard drew a knife and drove it through the fish’s head, through the gaping jaws and stilling the biting teeth. Though the tiny brain refused to accept the idea of death, it could no longer tear at him. It bumped him, rubbing its rough scales over his side, enveloped in the blood clouding the water.

  More crimson suddenly spilled from the giant fish that had belched its offspring to the attack. Its jaws widened again, revealing Khlinat striking at the creature’s upper mouth with both hand axes. Chunks of bloody flesh floated out of its mouth.

  “Khlinat!” Pacys cried. “Get away from that thing, that I might aid you.”

  Spinning, the dwarf looked for Pacys and found him. Almost reluctantly, as if he had his terrible foe exactly where he wanted it, Khlinat swam from the creature’s mouth in the ungainly dog paddle he’d managed over the last few days around Faenasuor.

  Pacys dug his hand into the small meal pouch he’d taken from the sea elf city after deciding to spend the afternoon getting to know the sacedder better. One of the tidbits the elven chef had foisted upon him was octopus tentacle. It had been good, but the woman had been overgenerous with her portions, and there was some left.

  The old bard pinched a portion off, said another command word, gestured, and pointed at the giant fish only twenty-five yards away. The octopus tentacle chunk disappeared from his hand, consumed by the spell.

  Instantly, a mass of black tentacles formed under and around the giant fish. Over ten feet in length, the tentacles coiled in exploration, finding the giant fish almost at once. They ensnared and wrapped the fish, constricting around the creature and pulling it to within reach of still other tentacles.

  One of the tentacles snaked out and wrapped around Khlinat’s good leg. Reacting quickly, the dwarf swung both hand axes repeatedly, finally cutting through the rubbery flesh and severing the tentacle. He swam toward Pacys. Overcome by his wounds and the effort of casting the spells, the bard watched helplessly as the magic shield ceased its shimmering and went away. The remaining three fish swam for him eagerly, their jaws open wide in expectation.

  Pacys covered up as best as he could, protecting his throat, face, and eyes with his arms. The fish went for the soft tissues of his stomach and under his arms. The old bard tried to knock them away with his elbows, but he’d run out of spells he could easily cast, and the staff didn’t give him the room or time to use it that he needed to protect his face and throat.

  In the next moment, Khlinat was there, roaring great dwarven curses and calling on his god. Pacys felt the shudder of the hand axes cleaving flesh through the connection he had with two of the fish that’d sunk their teeth into him.

  The dwarven warrior threw his arms around Pacys protectively, holding the old bard up. “Speak to me, songsmith! Don’t ye dare be dying on me shift. Not while ol’ Khlinat’s got his eyes peeled and made ye the promise I did!”

  Pacys opened his eyes, fighting the exhaustion and pain that threatened to consume him. “I still live, my friend. You’ve not gone back on your promise yet.”

  “And I won’t either,” the dwarf declared fiercely. “Ye will see I’m a man of me word.” Blood seeped from wounds on his body as well, mixing with the bard’s in the salty water.

  Taareen arrived foremost among the elves mounted on seahorses. He flung himself off the creature and swam toward Pacys.

  “Taleweaver!” the sea elf cried, eeling toward him in the particular undulation the sea elves used for cutting rapidly through the water.

  “I’m here,” Pacys said.

  Taareen surveyed him, taking in the damage done with a grimace.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” Pacys said, though he felt that it was.

  “We should have had guards over you,” Taareen said. “We knew how important you were, and that the Taker
would strike at you if he could. Now that he’s found you here, we’re going to have to move you somewhere else.”

  The other elves mounted on seahorses rode around the giant fish struggling against the black tentacles Pacys had summoned. They fired repeated crossbow bolts into the giant fish, taking care to stay well away from the reach of the tentacles.

  “What makes you so sure the Taker has found me?” Pacys asked.

  “The ascallion isn’t a normal Shallows or Gloom predator,” Taareen said, pointed at the creature that had attacked the bard. “Usually that monster is only found in the Twilight depths.”

  Pacys knew from his understanding of the stratification of Serôs’ depths that the Twilight was the depth between three hundred to six hundred feet. “Maybe it found its way up here by mistake.”

  The black tentacles disappeared in the next moment as the magic sustaining them became exhausted. The ascallion tried only a feeble escape. More than a dozen quarrels stuck out of its face, and more were shot into it as the old bard watched.

  Taareen shook his head. “There’s no mistake. The Taker found a way to send that creature here, and we’re lucky that you escaped with your life. By the Dolphin Prince, the things we would have lost had we lost you.”

  XXIII

  26 Kythorn, the Year of the Gauntlet

  Laaqueel stood on the deck of the royal flier as it glided through the ocean, powered by sahuagin rowers. She’d never traveled on one of the craft for long distances before, and never at all until Iakhovas had become baron.

  She felt proud as she watched the four hundred rowers working in rapid tandem, pulling the sahuagin craft through the underbelly of the ocean at a normal pace that more than doubled anything a surface vessel could do, even with rowers and a favorable wind. A two hundred forty-mile day was a normal average for the fliers. The other two hundred sahuagin that made up the rest of the crew rotated in, taking a shift at the oars as well while spelling another team.

  Laaqueel scanned the deep blue of the ocean around them, looking back at all the fliers that followed. Though she couldn’t see them all because even her eyes couldn’t penetrate the gloom, she knew there were more than two dozen in all.

  Satisfied that there was nothing she could do to make the journey more safe, she tried not to think about the possible dangers waiting at the Lake of Steam, where Iakhovas had said they were headed. With a final prayer offered up to Sekolah, she turned and walked the length of the flier to the cabin Iakhovas had ordered constructed in the stern as his personal quarters. None of the other fliers had such a thing.

  She stood before the door and raised her hand to rap on the door.

  Before she could touch it, Iakhovas’s voice rumbled, “Enter, little malenti.”

  She let herself through the door, having the brief but certain feeling that it would not have opened at all if he hadn’t allowed it.

  Iakhovas occupied a chair constructed of whalebone that was thronelike in its dimensions. Seaweed draped it, creating a cushion. Lucent algae hung in irregular strips across the ceiling. Shelves held some of the items his spies and troops had gathered since the attacks against the coastal lands had begun.

  Laaqueel could sense the power that clung to most of them but didn’t know what any of them were.

  A crystal brain coral sat in the middle of the table, as tightly furrowed as its namesake. Though she was familiar with all the corals that formed along the Sword Coast, the malenti priestess had never seen anything like it. Motion slithered and twisted in the brain coral’s depths.

  Iakhovas sat back in the seat, his attention riveted on the crystal brain coral. Some of the glitter on the crystalline surface reflected through the patch covering his empty eye socket.

  “What do you want?” he asked, sounding distracted.

  “Only to see what it was that took up so much of your attention,” she told him. “Our people need to see their king out among them more if they’re going to follow him into areas not meant for We Who Eat.”

  Iakhovas fixed his single eye on her, but she felt something else—a cold and alien glare—settle on her from his missing eye.

  “Not meant for We Who Eat?” He shook his head. “Little malenti, there are sahuagin in those waters, and we are on our way to set them free. Come. Let me show you.” He gestured toward the brain coral.

  Moving closer, Laaqueel stared into the brain coral’s depths. Lights spun and glittered there. She knew it was an underwater location from the color around the figures revealed to her. No sky ever held that shade of blue, and no patch of land ever looked like the silt bed of the ocean floor.

  One of the figures was an old surface dweller riding in front of a sea elf on a seahorse. They rode toward a city that had parts that looked as ancient as anything Laaqueel had ever seen. Even though she knew she shouldn’t involve herself, the malenti priestess couldn’t help asking, “Who’s this?”

  Iakhovas considered her question for a moment. “In all your studies about One Who Swims With Sekolah, did you ever hear the name Taleweaver?”

  “No.” She didn’t remember reading the name, but something turned over in her memory.

  “The sea elves have legends about me too,” Iakhovas said. “All marine creatures that had a means of recording history when I was last in these waters had stories of me.” He laughed, and the sound echoed within the cabin. “All of them are lies. Lies built on misconceptions and prejudiced hatred. Some of them I even started myself through various agents.”

  “This man is the Taleweaver?” Laaqueel asked.

  “Yes,” Iakhovas admitted.

  Laaqueel scanned the man again, trying to find anything of significance about him. “What part is he supposed to play in all this?”

  “In the little drama the sea elves are trying to establish?” Iakhovas asked. “He is supposed to find their savior.”

  “Their savior?” Laaqueel felt a little uneasy talking of saviors. Her own beliefs were strong, and she knew that other religions, other gods, exercised considerable power across Faerûn as well.

  “Someone who will stand against me and defeat me,” Iakhovas explained. “You know how these legends are. Humans and elves all believe in these great romances of men and elves that are able to triumph against great and overwhelming odds.”

  “Is it true?”

  “Their myth of the savior?” For a moment, Laaqueel hesitated putting voice to her reply because she didn’t know how Iakhovas would react. “Yes.”

  Iakhovas shook his head and laughed again. “Little malenti, I helped create the myth of their savior. There is no savior. Any human they find who believes he is this one is only a fool one heartbeat away from death.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  Iakhovas raked a talon against the crystal brain coral, causing a tiny, high-pitched ring and said, “Because I could. Because it amused me. Most of all, because it served me. If they didn’t have the legend of their hero, they wouldn’t do the things I need them to that will insure my success.”

  “What do you need from them?”

  He raked her with his harsh gaze. “You know more than any other at this time, little malenti. Don’t get any greedier than I can tolerate.”

  Laaqueel felt a surge of anger thrill through her. Only days ago he’d helped her rebuild her faith, now he was pushing her at arm’s length again.

  “At ease,” Iakhovas told her. “I only want you to remember your boundaries for your own benefit. Not mine.”

  Carefully, Laaqueel pushed water through her gills and dropped her eyes in deference to his authority. In many ways he was correct. She had her faith, and that would be enough. That strength would serve her as she served Sekolah.

  “And to answer your question, the elves believe the Taleweaver will help them rebuild their histories and allow them some measure of a chance to defeat me once the savior is found. However, as the Taleweaver moves to the ripples they feed him, so does he serve the undercurrent I’ve had in play for thousand
s of years.”

  Listening carefully, Laaqueel filed the information away in her mind.

  “There are, in the Sea of Fallen Stars—or Serôs as they call it there—beings who are unlike any of those elsewhere in all of Toril. They can prove to be somewhat difficult to deal with. And if I—if we—do not move cleverly while we are there, the Sea of Fallen Stars can become a trap. I have no intention of allowing that to happen.”

  Laaqueel tried to listen to any sign of fear or anxiety in his voice, but there was none. Only the confidence he always exuded sounded in it.

  “Now come, little malenti, and let me show you the brethren to We Who Eat that I’ve spoken of. They are there, and they are kept behind a wall that is meant to keep them from taking over all of Serôs, as is their right.”

  “Sekolah would never allow such a thing,” Laaqueel said. The idea of sahuagin penned up, being made to stay in one spot was unthinkable.

  “The Great Shark will tolerate it no longer,” Iakhovas said. “That’s why you and I were brought together here and now. We will bring them their freedom, and the people of Serôs will know what it means to have doom suckled to their breasts like a vampiric child.”

  Curious and a little afraid to find what he was saying was true, Laaqueel peered into the crystal brain coral.

  The image of the sea elf and the old surface dweller astride the seahorse floating down into the ancient city faded from the crystal’s depths. In seconds it was replaced with the image of a sahuagin hunting party armed with nets and tridents.

  “They are different,” Laaqueel breathed, surprise filling her and driving away her own fears and doubts. Their anterior fins radiated from the sides of their heads as did the ones in the outer seas, but they flowed longer, reaching back along the skull until they merged with the dorsal fin at the top of their shoulder blades. Also, their coloring tended more toward blue shades than green. In fact some of those Laaqueel saw were teal and turquoise colored. A great number of them had speckles and stripes, like the markings they had as hatchlings.