Queen of the Depths (25 page)

“Yes.”

“Well, then,” said Tu’ala’keth, “let us consider our options.”

ŚŠ• ŚŠ•ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ

Shex glided back and forth in the comfortable suite of chambers Yzil had—no doubt grudgingly—assigned him, while a half-grown locathah male cowered in a cranny in the coral. Shex had sent for the slave to be his supper then realized he felt too restless to eat.

His creed taught that self-possession was a fundamental virtue, for without it, calculation and guile were impossible. But he supposed that in his present circumstances, even a vitan could forgive himself a measure of excitement. For in a few hours, the Vitanar’s enemy would capitulate to him then His Holiness would reward Shex with Yzil’s offices and chattels.

Unless Yzil managed to end the threat to the eggs.

But that was impossible, surely. The devitan had tried repeatedly and failed. He wouldn’t fare any better now just because a shalarin, of all things, had pounced out of nowhere to assist him. At first, Tu’ala’keth’s intrusion had rattled Shex, but only because it was so unexpected. She was just a slave creature and the servant of an inferior power. It was preposterous to imagine her playing any sort of decisive role in the affairs of ixitxachitls.

Shex’s belly gurgled, and he wondered if perhaps he could bring himself to drink something after all. He rounded on the locathah, advanced on it in leisurely fashion, and savored its wide-eyed, cringing dread.

Maybe after he slaked his thirst, he should give some thought to what might be causing the city’s problem and what a more resourceful devitan might do to solve it. For after all, it would be his puzzle to unravel soon enough.

He opened his jaws. The locathah whimpered and shuddered but offered no resistance. It understood its only chance of survival lay in capitulation. In the hope that its master, if not annoyed with it, might stop short of draining all its blood.

Then, outside the apartments, voices sounded. Shex pivoted toward the doorway.

A water elemental in the wavering, translucent semblance of a porpoise raced through the opening. Alarmed, the vitan retreated and rattled off the first line of a prayer of protection.

But the spirit made no effort to attack. Instead, it sank lower in the water, abasing itself before him. “Save me, Master!” it cried.

Plainly in furious pursuit of the elemental, Tu’ala’keth, Yzil, and a dozen of the latter’s guards burst into the suite. “By the Great Ray!” the devitan cried. “I should have suspected you, Shex, but I never guessed.”

Shex felt a flutter of incipient fear in his belly and struggled to quash the emotion before it could shake his composure. “Suspected me of what, Devitan? I don’t understand what’s happening here, but I know I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You can’t lie your way out of it,” Yzil said, “not with your familiar groveling before you. I’m pleased to report the waveservant and I exterminated all the others, before they could destroy more of the eggs, but this one escaped and fled to its master for protection. That worked out nicely, for it led us right to you.”

“This is some sort of misunderstanding,” said Shex. Or, more likely, it was a trick! “I didn’t conjure this elemental or any other.”

His body riddled with half-healed puncture wounds, Yzil swam closer. “Give it up, Vitan. Everyone understands you had abundant reason to make a covert attack on Exzethlix. You coveted my domain

for yourself and believed that if you made me appear incapable of defending it, the Vitanar would award it to you.”

“I’m glad,” said Shex, “you recall my relationship with His Holiness. As his envoy, I’m untouchable.”

“In most circumstances, yes.” Yzil glided nearer. “After committing treason of this magnitude, no.”

“The allegation is absurd. But if you believe otherwise, I demand a trial.”

“All right, but pay attention, or you’ll miss it. As devitan of Exzethlix, I find you guilty and sentence you to death.”

“A trial before His Holiness, in Xedras! He’ll punish you if I don’t get it.”

Yzil laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you truly believe the Vitanar cares about you? You’re a pawn, worth protecting, but only to a point. He won’t object to the expeditious execution of a traitor caught committing atrocities. Doing so would tarnish his reputation, and even the great must pay some heed to how their vassals view them. You likely would have discovered that yourself in time, but alas, you’ve run out of it.”

“Give me a trial by combat! Fight me yourself! Let Ilxendren judge between us.” Under normal circumstances, a vitan could hardly expect to defeat a devitan. But Yzil had just fought a battle and still bore the wounds. Shex was fresh. He reckoned he had a chance.

Yzil sneered. “I deny you trial by combat. I’ve already judged and sentenced you. But I do mean to fight you, simply for the pleasure of killing you myself. Understand, though, that if, by some extraordinary fluke, you beat me, these others will still destroy you.”

We’ll see about that, thought Shex. Once he slew Yzil, he’d be the highest-ranking ixitxachitl in the chamber, indeed, possessed of authority equal to that

of any vitan in the city. It was possible no one else would prove bold enough to carry out Yzil’s sentence.

He retreated and started murmuring a prayer. Yzil simply bared his fangs and rushed him. He hoped to end the fight immediately, with one savage assault.

Shex dodged. Yzil shot past him and started to wheel.

The vitan glimpsed motion at the periphery of his vision. The elemental was darting at Yzil’s flank, commencing an attack in aid of the ixitxachitl it had inexplicably identified as its master. Shex had a split second to wonder if that was a good thing or not, and Tu’ala’keth lunged, interposing herself between the semitransparent porpoise-thing and its target. The spirit veered off to avoid the tines of her trident.

Shex reached the final word of his incantation. The water immediately in front of Yzil’s snarling countenance swirled with a dark malignancy. The power was meant to sear his eyes blind, but when the stain came in contact with his body, a bluish light gleamed briefly from his hide. He had charms in place to counter hostile magic, and when he charged, it was obvious he could still see.

Shex started to evade then realized he was moving precisely as Yzil wanted him to. The devitan was trying to maneuver him into a nook in the coral and trap him.

Stroking desperately, Shex changed direction and launched himself up and over his onrushing foe. Yzil reacted in time to lash him with his tail. The blow flicked him on his ventral side and should have produced a sting and a welt, no more. But it burned and kept on burning, the pain sinking into his vitals like acid eating away at him.

Clearly, he’d fallen prey to another spell his adversary had cast beforehand, and he’d just have to block out the torment for now. He had to concentrate on

fighting. He snarled the opening line of another prayer, and Yzil whirled around to face him.

Meanwhile, the water elemental tried ineffectually to get by Tu’ala’keth’s trident, and she declaimed a banishment to return it to its native plane. It was obvious to Shex that the porpoise-thing wasn’t really trying to help him. It and the shalarin were merely putting on a show to substantiate the lie that the creature was his thrall. He wondered if anyone else could tell. Then Yzil charged, and he forgot all about it.

Shex faked another dodge over the^top then dived beneath the devitan, succeeding in slipping past without even suffering another tail strike. He was clearly more nimble than his adversary. Perhaps Yzil’s wounds were to blame.

Shex reached the conclusion of his spell. Grayness flowered in the water then clotted into a shark with pale, luminous eyes and jagged black teeth. With a thought, he nudged it at its intended prey, and it instantly surged into motion.

Now it was Yzil’s turn to evade and retreat before an opponent he was reluctant to face in close combat. But if the demon-shark didn’t get him, Shex would by hammering him with one attack spell after another while he was too hard pressed to retaliate. Even a devitan’s defensive enchantments wouldn’t stop them all.

Shex sought to afflict Yzil with uncontrollable panic. With a snarl, the devitan resisted the curse. But it froze him in place for an instant, and the demon shark snagged the left edge of his body in its ebon teeth and started to gobble him down.

Yzil tore himself free but left a substantial portion of his left side behind. Blood billowed from the tattered remnants. Shex cried out in pleasure because no one, not even a devitan, could endure such a hurt and go on fighting.

Except that Yzil did. He swung himself around and

buried his fangs in his attacker’s flank, just behind the gill slits. Evidently as susceptible to the malignant effect of the bite as any mundane creature, the spirit-shark convulsed and kept on thrashing. Yzil sucked at its wounds for a second then rushed Shex, emerging from a cloud of dark, pungent gore and leaving a trail of it behind himself.

But it didn’t matter. Yzil hadn’t been able to catch Shex when his body was intact, and the ragged, lopsided cripple he’d become obviously wouldn’t swim as well. The vitan stroked almost lazily backward and commenced another spell.

Yzil said, “Stop.”

No! thought Shex, and obeyed anyway. He stopped retreating and conjuring both. He strained to resume moving, and his body flailed, breaking free of the enchantment. Then Yzil struck, driving his fangs into his opponent’s spine.

Ghastly pain ripped through Shex’s entire body. He struggled to pull free and bring his own fangs to bear, just as Yzil had done with the shark. But the devitan wrapped his tail around him, crumpling and binding him together, and gnawed the bite wound deeper. Then he began to drink in earnest.

Shex’s blood, strength, and will all flowed out of him together, and he dangled quiescent in Yzil’s grip. He noticed his erstwhile supper smirking at the spectacle of his demise and wondered if the idiotic locathah believed it had truly escaped anything, if it imagined the rest of the ixitxachitls would use it more gently.

Then it became too much effort to wonder that or anything at all.

ŚŠ• ŚŠŚŚŠŚŚŠŚ

It was morning when a flunky conducted Tu’ala’keth to Yzil’s suite. The coral chambers were large and

accordingly luxurious by the standards of a ‘chitl, but to her eye, rather bare of furniture, utensils, and similar amenities.

Body rippling lazily, Yzil floated among a litter of drifting corpses. A trace of blood, the little he hadn’t consumed, clouded, scented, and flavored the water. When he’d sent Tu’ala’keth away, he’d claimed she wouldn’t be safe in his presence, and beholding the slaughter, she rather believed it.

“I know it looks like gluttony,” he said, “but I fear the truth is even sadder: I’m getting old, and after an injury like that, it takes a lot of blood to restore me.”

“You did not have to fight Shex,” she said.

“No, but it was satisfying and a good way for a devitan to conduct himself now and again. It reminds the underlings why they’re afraid of you.”

“Are you well now?”

“Oh, yes.” He curled the edges of his flat body so she could better inspect them. “The scars are impressive and still smart a little, but even those will fade in time.”

“Have I fulfilled my pledge?”

“Yes, brilliantly. Shex is gone. It reflects poorly on His Holiness that his emissary was denounced as a traitor, so he’s likely to leave me in peace for a while. Wraxzala won’t dare destroy any more eggs now that we know how she was accomplishing it, and as soon as I contrive an adequate excuse, I’ll rid myself of her as well. Happily, she’s not the Vitanar’s pet, so it shouldn’t be particularly difficult.”

“Then I assume you are ready to repay me.”

Yzil curled himself slightly smaller, a gesture conveying embarrassment or apology and surely one to which a ferocious, imperious devitan was unaccustomed. “I truly appreciate your help, waveservant. But you must ask a different boon. I don’t care how much plunder we could take. I won’t send my troops

to fight dragons and wizards. Not on land. The risk is unacceptable.”

“What about the hazards of doing nothing? I explained to you, I have to conquer the wyrms on Tan in order to defeat the dragons running amok here in Seros. If no one stops them, they could ravage Exzethlix.”

“Or they may go elsewhere. My comrade, we’re both initiate in the ways of blood and chaos. If you say you know these cultists hold a solution to your problems, I believe it. But sometimes the dark powers provide answers to our questions that, while true, don’t really help us because we lack the strength to turn the revelations to practical advantage.”

“Yesterday, I lacked the strength. Today, I have it. Exzethlix is the sturdy spear in my hand.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“You have always desired the free run of Myth Nantar, to trade in her markets and speak in her councils.”

The ‘chitl laughed bitterly. “As if the allied peoples would ever tolerate ixitxachitls.”

“They accept morkoths, who hold as many slaves as your folk. A morkoth even sits on the Council of Twelve. When I destroy the dragon flight and restore the worship of Umberlee, I will become an influential figure in Myth Nantar. I will exert that influence on your behalf.”

“At which point, His Holiness indicts me for heresy.”

“Naturally, the matter will require circumspection, but I trust you have not forgotten how to scheme. Nor to gamble.”

Yzil pursed his lips and sucked at his fangs, pondering. At last he said, “No. Tempting though it is. I’m sorry.”

“As am I,” said Tu’ala’keth. “I had hoped to do this amiably.”

The ray glared at her. “Meaning what?”

“Today, you are the savior of Exzethlix. Such a hero that, for a while, even the Vitanar will hesitate to interfere with you. But your situation would deteriorate quickly if folk found out you deliberately condemned the wrong person for the destruction of the eggs and left the actual culprit swimming free.”

“I did it that way because you suggested it!”

She shrugged. “Who will care? You still bear responsibility for your own decisions.”