Mervidia (15 page)

“I am here to collect my
debt, Kiva,” Lachlan said bluntly, not willing to float there another moment with her staring at him with that condescending look on her face, as she reclined on her flamboyant pillowed throne.

“That is
Domo
Kiva to you,” Kiva replied tersely. “And, how dare you come into my house demanding things, you houseless worm. I owe you nothing.”

“I am not houseless,” Lachlan retorted, his hand subconsciously going to the pommel of the
short bone sword at his belt, sharpened to a lethal edge. The mercenary had chosen the weapon specifically for his visit to House Perna, knowing it would better serve him in close quarters than his spear would have. He was also just as deadly with the blade as he was with the spear. “House Nori still exists as long as some of us still live, and you owe me for my silence in matters concerning House Mauve,” he blatantly stated.

“Shark crap, Lachlan,” Kiva spat, sitting up straight and pointing a finger at him.
“House Nori lays a crumbled ruin, and its survivors live off of the Ghet’s shit. The same goes for House Mauve.”

“I am not here to argue semantics with you.” Lachlan said, forcing down his anger.
“I am tired of the misinformation games your agents are spreading about Beryl’s assassin, so I came directly to the source.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Kiva replied, and to her credit she genuinely looked puzzled.
“
My
agents would never leak information without my permission, and I gave no such order.” Lachlan knew he was about to act boldly, but he was tired of the faera’s arrogance. He hoped that his next words would not cost him his life.

“Fish crap! We both know that the knowledge I possess could have you removed from that pretentious throne. You are a
domo
, not royalty,” the seifeira threatened, wanting his information, this conversation to be done, and finally be able to leave House Perna. As much as Jade hated the grogstack, Lachlan equally despised the faera. They had cost him his home and his previous way of life. The faera had taken away all he had once loved and left him to die. He was done. “Shall I expose you for your part in the fall of House Mauve? I am sure King Reth’s sister would be most interested.”

Kiva contorted her face into an ugly scowl and her eyes narrowed, her right hand resting on a stiff looking bone necklace around her bare neck.
The faera were notorious for secreting weapons inconspicuously into their jewelry. Lachlan kept his hand on the hilt of his blade, anticipating her drawing a weapon. He wanted to be ready to dodge whatever attack was about to come his way and then drive his sword through her tiny malevolent heart.

“You don’t have to leave this room alive, you know?” Kiva said, her voice a harsh whisper.
Lachlan was unfazed, returning her contemptuous look.

“Zane
personally assigned me to this job. Do you really want to start a war with the Red Tridents?” Lachlan replied coolly, yet his hand still rested on his sword’s grip.

Lachlan’s words silenced Kiva, and he could almost see her weighing her next move.
He breathed a sigh of relief, when her hand dropped from her necklace. Despite Lachlan’s expert martial talents, a faera could usually kill before a merwin knew she had drawn her blade. They were not Mervidia’s chosen assassins for their physical strength, but for their agility, size, and cunning. Faera could easily slip in and out of a house, through a secret door thought known only by the family in residence, and never be detected.

“Fine,” Kiva said, and her face broke into a mischievous grin.
“You can’t blame me for trying to get out of an obligation. Who do you want…
expunged
?” Kiva asked, leaning forward eagerly. She obviously loved what she did; killing for the thrill of it. Lachlan suddenly saw a glimmer in Kiva’s eye that he recognized from Jade’s behavior the night before… her
enjoyment
as she had tortured the grogstack. He knew Jade was getting into the interrogation a little too much, but he had played along.
She hadn’t been too harsh on the prisoner, had she?
He pondered. It made the seifeira think a little differently about his neondra love.
Could Jade end up like Kiva, if she continued down that path of hatred… to
enjoy
causing pain?
If that were to happen, Lachlan would not remain involved with his paramour. He hated the faera as much as Jade hated the grogstack, but he would never resort to unnecessary torture. He’d have to think more on it later and possibly talk to Jade.

“We don’t need anyone murdered,” Lachlan replied, simplifying her overly dramatic question.
“I need specific information.” The mercenary paused and looked around, hoping that they were truly alone.

Kiva
must have guessed at what he was thinking.

“Lachlan, this room is sealed.
Speak freely. What do you need to know?” Kiva asked.

“Who hired Queen Beryl’s assassin?” Lachlan asked.
Kiva sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. House Mauve fell because of you and your expansive network of spies. It was your hand that murdered Domo Bravante and spoiled our chance at a peaceful resolution with House Mauve. Had I known of your deed, when I had you squirming in my grasp, I would have killed you right then and there.” Kiva opened her mouth to speak, but Lachlan continued. “And, if I ever found out who hired you, I’d murder them too. My domo wanted peace, not war.”

“Lachlan,” Kiva said, finally getting in a word, her face paling with either fear or shock, he could not tell which.
He guessed the first by the way her voice trembled, when she said his name.
The mercenary paused in his rant, realizing that he was worked up. He breathed in water through his neck gills and out through the ones in his chest, in an effort to calm himself.

Why would she fear me?
Lachlan thought, studying the faera before him. She dropped her eyes from his gaze in acquiescence.
Perhaps, she is afraid because I subdued her before, that I could do it again. Both of us have grown stronger these past few cycles.
He thought better of that though; he was fairly certain that she could easily
expunge
him. It was his knowledge that seemed to have scared her.

“I will tell you who murdered Beryl,” Kiva said, her voice regaining its former strength and confidence with every word, “but my debt to you will be fully paid, and your silence regarding any of my affairs will be sealed for good.
You did not get this information from me.” She sat up and leaned forward, as if to drive home her next words. “Also, I
never
want to see you in my house again. Do you agree to these terms?”

“Yes,” Lachlan said, regaining his composure by swallowing hard.
He wasn’t sure how he had won over Kiva, but he wasn’t about to ask her why. “I agree.” Kiva’s annoying pompous grin returned.

“Very well.
The assassin who was hired to murder Queen Beryl is Gene of House Stonegem.” Kiva’s grin got even bigger, as if she knew something else but was not willing to tell him everything. Lachlan got what he came for though, so he didn’t care. Any other information was up to Zane to purchase on his own; faera prices were steep and rarely paid for in pearls.

Chapter Sixteen

Ambrose hurried into his cave, resisting the impulse to use his kalku sorcery to speed his pa
ssage along. He had done so twice recently, and he had no wish to tax his abilities any further.
Not that augmenting my celerity arcanely is much of a tax to my powers,
he thought wryly, as he passed over the threshold of his personal abode.
It’s always so amusing to see the shock on a merwin’s face, when I suddenly
appear
before them.
He chuckled. To the ignorant, it did look as though he would vanish from one place and reappear in another. In actuality though, it was a kalku technique that greatly enhanced his speed, while mildly slowing the perception of those around him. He did not
teleport
as was whispered by the less informed and superstitious.
Teleportation is impossible,
he thought.
Any novice kalku, or machi, knows that.
He simply moved faster than their senses could register and report to their tiny little brains.

Ambrose closed the bone-framed, skin-covered door behind him, slamming the door irritably into the frame three times before regaining his composure.
A small chunk of magically treated orihalcyon fastened to the ceiling was pulsing an angry red. Ambrose had linked the piece of unworked ore to the large colony of tubeworms that camouflaged the outside of his door. When something came close enough to cause the small sea creatures to retract into their protective columns, the orihalcyon would begin pulsing to warn Ambrose that something or someone was nearby. He glared at the blinking red light, further irritation added to his already foul mood. He waved his webbed hand and hissed an angry word at the orihalcyon. The pulsing warning light stopped, and he seethed in the resulting darkness, grinding his teeth.

Here in his sanctum, he sometimes let
his emotions bubble to the surface.
However, there is no need to act like a savage, regardless of whether or not there is an audience,
he admonished himself inwardly.

He took a deep cleansing inhalation, letting the anger and irritation he felt wash out of him along with the sea water.
He set the slender stone bar used for security across the door and then turned to face his workshop. A quick whispered word and tiny bursts of frigid water washed out through the room, pushing aside the woven kelp curtains that covered the orihalcyon lanterns set into the stone walls. Orange light flooded the room, parting the darkness and revealing the contents of the cave.

Shelves lined almost every wall, from the smooth polished floor to the dark stone ceiling overhead.
The shaped-bone constructions were heavily laden with books of various sizes and thicknesses, jars and bottles of every color and shape, as well as a myriad of other tools used in his sorcerous work. One wall was covered with rectangular cages of differing sizes, though they had all been woven together to form one large structure of spell-crafted coral. The door to each cage was a lattice of bone, shaped and fortified by Ambrose’s kalku powers. It allowed the octolaide sorcerer to see the creature trapped inside, while still keeping the beast securely locked away.

He had found the cave
cycles ago, nestled within a large colony of tube worms, when he had left his brother’s house, which is how the displaced merwin now thought of House Tenebris. Despite the close proximity to a cold seep and the resulting noxious smells, it had been a good place to build his sanctum. It wasn’t ideal to start, but Ambrose had used his intelligence and skill to fashion it to suit his desires.
As I do everything around me,
he thought smugly. He had cowed a group of grogstack, a disgusting little family pod he had found squatting in the cave, into not only giving the cave over to him, but also into hollowing out the space further. The merwin, under his careful guidance, had expanded the cave and then added two smaller rooms off of the initial cavern. One he had turned into his bedchamber and the other he used to house his experiments, far away from prying eyes.

After his home was to his liking, he had killed the
grogstack family, ensuring that the two additional chambers remained secret.
Filthy creatures,
he mused,
but vigorous. Their life energy powered my experiments for nearly a quarter-cycle.
His black tongue darted out of his mouth, licking his thin lips, as though savoring, for just a moment longer, the spiritual essence that he had taken into his body many cycles ago.
Although not a great source of power, the youngling was particularly useful.
He directed his eyes down the length of the bookshelves to the section that kept the entrance to his bedchambers hidden.

Hidden, except to those with whom I choose to share it,
he thought
.
He felt a longing rise unbidden in his loins, quickly followed by a molten anger in his chest. The memory of the last time he had shared his bed with Odette was at the core of both emotions. Ambrose’s potent will seized on both the memory and the emotions they caused with the speed, strength, and savagery of a shark and dragged them down into the dark recesses of his soul.
I am beyond such things,
he reminded himself, though a small part of him knew the statement wasn’t entirely true. He had attempted many times to convince himself that their dalliances were at an end, yet he had shared too many secrets, sorcerous and otherwise, with the striking female. Odette somehow managed, repeatedly, to pull him back into her cold, tentacled embrace, but it had always been on her terms. That infuriated him the most.

There’s always one more favor you need done,
he mentally railed at his absent, inconstant lover.
One more spell you want to learn. One more secret you want to pry from my mind. Well, that time is over. I am done being your pet shark, caged or ridden at your whim.

Though he felt his emotions rise again, he decided to channel his irritation into something more constructive and hopefully fruitful.
One of his tentacles took the bone staff from his hand, while the others propelled him across the room to his workbench. He opened a small bone chest, pulled out a shell roughly half the size of his fist, and placed it on a low coral table. Ambrose’s workspace was large and filled with his sorcerous books and tools, but it was organized and uncluttered. A merwin did not rise to his level of kalku skill with a disorderly mind, and his living space was a reflection of his mental precision and discipline. In short unhurried order, the kalku had everything he needed assembled and neatly laid out before him.

He opened one of his cages with a free tentacle and pulled out a small squid.
Carefully, he held the creature in a webbed hand, holding it by the top of its head to avoid its tentacles. As Ambrose held the sea beast, its skin changed color, an impotent attempt to hide, despite being firmly caught in the octolaide’s grip. Ambrose felt neither compassion nor amusement at the squid’s actions. Its life would serve a higher purpose.

Ambrose retrieved a short, hook-shaped, coral dagger from the table with one of his tentacles and placed the blade into his hand.
He slit open the squid with a single efficient stroke. Another tentacle took the blade from his hand and set it aside. He placed a webbed hand around the squid’s middle and squeezed gently, causing a steady stream of blood and ink to issue forth from the short incision. He had exposed the creature’s ink sac and did his best to extract every last drop. Panicked and in great pain, the squid began to thrash its tentacles, causing the stream of black liquid to disperse into the water.

“No, no,” Ambrose said, as though he were gently scolding a small child.
“We can’t have you making a mess.” The kalku reached out with his will, seized the squid’s spirit, and drew in the slowly ebbing energy that remained. The bleeding creature abruptly ceased its struggling and went limp in Ambrose’s hand, its tentacles floating lifelessly in the tiny currents caused by its own death throes.

Whispering
ominous words into the water around him, the ink and blood from the dead sea animal began to swirl in a tiny whirlpool of crimson and black. Ambrose absently passed the corpse of the small sea creature from his hand to his tentacle and placed it aside, his attention completely devoted to the roiling mix of blood and ink that swirled before him. Without taking his eyes from the concoction of the squid’s vital fluids, Ambrose took the spiraled shell in hand from the table. The space within the nautilus was empty; the meat inside had been plucked out and fed to the animals in his cages long ago.

His focus shifted, and Ambrose looked into the unseen distance, as he concentrated on the r
ecipient of his spell. Keeping his intended target in his mind’s eye, Ambrose whispered his incantation, the words becoming louder and more insistent. The octolaide’s arcane mutterings continued for several moments more, as he slowly dribbled some of the squid’s life force drop by precious drop into the swirling mixture of blood and ink.

Suddenly, the kalku stopped, his voice going silent, and the black and red whirlpool was sucked into the empty shell
resting in the octolaide’s hands. As the last of the mixture entered the shell, he took a small sponge from a waiting tentacle and stoppered it. Ambrose placed a finger on the small piece of sponge he had wedged into the opening and spoke a single word to mystically seal the container shut.

Ambrose focused once again on his surroundings
as he turned to face the cages of varying sizes on the wall of his home. He stretched his tentacles out unerringly to the cage which contained the fish he wanted; the kalku knew precisely where each and every thing in his home was, down to the smallest fragment of coral he had harvested from King’s Reef.
An unorganized space is the sign of an unorganized mind
, he reminded himself.
We, who wield the dark sorcerous energies of the kalku, cannot afford to be sloppy.

Ambrose opened a medium-size cage and a dark, sinuous creature darted out, trying to escape.
The octolaide grabbed the gulper fish with a tentacle, his appendage given preternatural speed by a modicum of the slain squid’s life force. The eel-like animal began to wriggle in Ambrose’s grasp, its large head thrashing against his suckered grip. Ambrose pulled the gulper towards him, placing the fish’s face directly in front of his own.

As the creature opened its large mouth, Ambrose chuckled.
“I’m much too big to fit in even your prodigious mouth, little fish. I must say I do admire your spirit.” The kalku spoke a spell aloud, and the fish began to move more slowly. The gulper fish’s body floated in Ambrose’s grasp, its long tail moving sluggishly. “That’s better,” the kalku said, placing the small shell he had prepared into the creature’s waiting jaws. He reached out with a hand and gently closed the fish’s gaping jaws, its curved, razor-sharp teeth closing around the ensorcelled cargo.

Ambrose looked into the fish’s milky blue eyes and cast another spell, the water around him growing colder as his arcane words snaked out of his mouth and burrowed into the tiny brain of the gulper.
No sense in alerting anyone who might think to look at you twice about who might have sent such a message,
the kalku thought. He used the last of the dead squid’s life force to work the spell into the gulper fish’s mind. He had held the final measure in reserve, separate from himself, for just that purpose. Had he used his own power, the signature of his personal energy could possibly be traced back to him should his messenger be intercepted. He doubted there was anyone clever or skilled enough to do so in Mervidia,
but no sense in taking chances, is there?
he silently asked the fish.

The gulper’s head moved languidly back and forth, as though in response to the inquiry.
Ambrose knew that the motion was because the fish’s brain was still linked to his own, but a grin curved his thin-lipped mouth with amusement nonetheless.

Ambrose swam over to the door of his home and opened it a hand
’s span. Physically and mentally releasing the fish, the gulper darted from his tentacle, swimming quickly out into the darkness. The creature would seek out the target of his spell, excluding all other impulses, and deliver the object now residing in its prodigious stomach.

The
octolaide closed the door, barring it once again. He went over to the floating body of the dead squid and absently began ripping off tentacles, feeding them to the other creatures still residing in the cages against the wall.