The Sea Devils Eye (33 page)

Azla turned left and headed through an opening. Sabyna was at her heels, aware that the surviving pirates had climbed up onto the ledge and were after them. The passageway ran only a short distance before opening to another cave.

A shaft of blue moonlight spewed through the crack in the cave twenty-five feet up. The light showed thick stalagmites and stalactites that had formed columns around a pool of water on the other side of the cave. Bones littered the floor. Farther back, three figures huddled against the wall on the other side of the pool.

“Help us!” a woman’s voice called out. She moved toward them, revealing the length of iron chain attached to the spike driven into the wall. A small boy cried helplessly, his arms wrapped around the woman. The third figure was a young man who’d picked up large rocks in both hands.

Sabyna noted the ragged clothing the three wore, as well as the obvious lack of nourishment, but she couldn’t figure out what they were doing there. Sabyna didn’t know if they could save themselves, much less free the prisoners. The crack in the roof, obviously created by the tremors, was the only way out of the cave.

The columns,” Glawinn said. “It’s our only chance.”

Sprinting across the room, Sabyna looked at the woman and the small child and asked, “Who are you?”

Glawinn and Azla slid into position behind two of the columns. The half-elf took up her bow again and put a shaft through the neck of the first pirate in the cave from less than fifteen paces. The man fell back, mortally wounded and drowning in his own blood. It gave the other pirates pause.

“Prisoners.” The woman’s face was grime-streaked, her hair knotted. Half-healed scratches covered her arms, neck, and shoulders. “A tribe of koalinth took our ship maybe a tenday ago. They brought us here.” She glanced at the pile of bones by the pool. There were nine of us once.”

“How did they get you here?”

“An underground river,” the woman replied. “It leads from the pool out to the sea. They brought us here so the sahuagin wouldn’t take us away from them. Koalinth are able to breathe fresh water. This cave was a convenient place to keep their larder.”

Azla loosed another arrow but missed her target as the pirates invaded the cave. They quickly fanned out and took cover behind boulders and other stalagmites. Vumorn came in last, bawling orders at his men to attack. With Glawinn ready to face them, none of the pirates appeared too eager.

Iakhovas strode into the room with the elf woman behind him. One of his eyes blazed.

“I want them dead,” he ordered. He pointed, spoke, and three of the columns near the pool shattered as if struck by a battering ram.

Sabyna dropped beside the woman and grabbed her chain in both hands. She pulled fiercely but the spike didn’t budge.

“Don’t leave us here,” the woman begged. “Please.”

“I won’t,” Sabyna promised. She slipped one of her daggers behind the spike’s head and tried to lever it from the wall, putting all of her back into the effort.

“At them, you scurvy dogs!” Vurgrom ordered.

Glancing over her shoulder, Sabyna saw Glawinn whirl suddenly and engage a pirate. The paladin blocked the pirate’s thrust with his soot-stained shield, then cleaved the man’s head in twain. Glawinn kicked the dead man from his blade, sending the body sprawling in the middle of the open.

“Have at you, then,” the paladin challenged. “By Lathander’s swift justice, here you’ll find a warrior tried and true.”

Iakhovas raised a hand.

“No,” a calm voice called through the shadows.

Recognizing the voice, not believing that she’d truly heard it, Sabyna looked up from pulling on the knife and spotted him standing in the opening leading to the last cave.

Jherek stood in the doorway, the cutlass level before him, the gaze in his eyes defiant. The cut Sabyna had seen on his face was really there, and the ship’s mage knew that the times she’d felt he’d spoken her name hadn’t been her imagination after all.

The young sailor wore breeches tucked into calf-high boots and a white shirt with belled sleeves. Blood streaked the shirt, proof that he’d come in through the cave’s main entrance.

“You should have struck me from behind, boy,” Iakhovas rasped, then he smiled. “But you couldn’t do that, could you?”

Jherek threw himself forward, revealing the other men behind him. A lightning bolt shot from Iakhovas’s finger and struck Jherek in the chest. The young sailor flew back out of the cave, slamming into two men behind him and disappearing over the ledge.

“No!” Sabyna yelled.

The knife blade snapped, and she fell, sliding across the rough stone floor toward the pool. As she started to push herself up, a face surfaced in the water. It was dark green and topped by coarse black hair. Pointed ears framed its head. The mouth was a broad, lipless slash filled with sharp fangs that gleamed in the moonlight.

The koalinth reached for Sabyna even as three other heads surfaced.

*****

“You closed the Great Barrier around Myth Nantar?” Pacys was astounded at Qos’s announcement.

The old bard sat on top of the coral in the courtyard south of the Maalirn College. Over the four days they’d talked, the storm giant seemed most comfortable there. Though he’d studied his host in detail, the old bard still hadn’t managed to pierce the guise the Green Dukar wore, nor managed to find out why he wore it.

“I had no choice,” Qos replied in his great, booming voice. “Myth Nantar represents the promise all Dukars made to each other and all of Seros. When those we sought to protect and guide turned on each other during the Tenth Seros War, I could stand it no longer. None of the Serosian races deserved something as grand as this city and its promise.”

The Dukars have faced problems before,” Pacys replied. His fingers idly strummed the saceddar, coaxing the tune he’d decided would best represent the storm giant.

“Yes,” Qos said. The giant paced, looking at the tall, tiger-coral covered buildings in the Law Quarter. “For nearly eight thousand years, the Dukars held positions of influence. Within five hundred years of our alliance with the sea elves of Aryselmalyr and our triumph over the koalinth, nearly five thousand years of peace ensued.” Ho closed his hand into a fist. “Can you imagine what those years must have been like?”

Pacys let his fingers roll over the saceddar, playing by instinct. “I can try.”

“During that time we built Myth Nantar and we created the Dukarn Academy. We did not know it then, but the Aryselmalyr sea elves planned to exact a price for letting us build there.

“The Dukars were told to swear fealty to the elven empire and the Coronal at Coryselmal.”

Qos clasped his hands behind his back and continued to pace. Being twenty-six feet tall, the giant’s strides were impressive to the bard.

“The elves began fighting among themselves and began trying to expand their empires,” Qos said. “The merfolk objected, and rightfully so. However, their first order of the day was to battle their way to Myth Nantar and claim it as theirs. The enmity between the elves of Coryselmal and Aryselmalyr escalated events. The Dukars stepped in, hoping to end it. Instead, the Dukars of Nantari who had sworn allegiance to Aryselmalyr warred against the other orders.”

Pacys listened to the sad weariness in the storm giant’s voice. Qos hadn’t lived during those times but it was easy to see that he had taken the history to heart. The old bard made the giant’s sadness and fatigue a part of the music, blending it so that it spoke eloquently.

“Never had anyone thought that Dukar hands would be raised against each other,” Qos continued. “They lived to promote peace and harmony throughout Seros and all races, believing that Seros could only prosper.”

“It was a grand dream,” Pacys commented.

“It wasn’t supposed to be a dream.” Fire sounded in the storm giant’s words. “That was the destiny of the Dukars, and why they founded their academies here in the City of Destinies. During that war, the merrow and the koalinth banded together to create the Horde of the Bloodtide, and mages aligned with Coronal Essyl created the Emerald Eye, which has been a bane in Seros ever since. Also, our first new order among the Dukars, the Order of Nantari, was destroyed.”

A school of fish swam in front of Pacys, creating a haze for a moment. He watched their gentle undulations, felt the miniature currents break against his body. His fingers moved a little more swiftly, adding in the motion that complemented the mood he sought to create.

“When the shalarin arrived after that and we allied with them, we made powerful friends,” Qos said. They easily took to the Dukar ways. Prosperity followed our orders again for a time, then a coronal was assassinated and the Dukars were blamed. The sea elves began striking out at the Dukar orders. In response, forty of the more aggressive of our order removed their normal colors and dressed in purple, calling themselves the Purple Order of Pamas, and began a limited war of their own.”

“But things didn’t end there,” Pacys said.

“No. War continued to be a way of life here, and everywhere it went, the Dukars could be found in it. Finally, after the Ninth Seros War, the Dukars helped draft the Laws of Battle, hoping it would stem the tide of violence that seemed unstoppable in this world. When that failed, when the Dukars could no longer believe, they left Myth Nan tin”

“And without the Dukars to protect it, the City of Destinies fell to the sahuagin.”

“Yes.” Sadness almost quenched the angry, molten fires in Qos’s emerald eyes. “After I joined the Dukars, I came to Myth Nantar.” He gestured with one hand, taking in the expanse of the city. “I saw most of what you see here, and my heart could not bear it.”

Pacys looked at the storm giant, seeing past the towering foe to the gentle spirit beneath. He coaxed that image with his song, building it note by note.

“So I chose to close Myth Nantar from those who’d deserted her.”

Pacys knew the storm giant hadn’t kept everyone who’d journeyed to the City of Destinies away. Dozens had slipped in past the Great Barrier over the years when Qos had deemed them worthy.

“Why did you let me in?” the old bard asked. It was a question he hadn’t dared ask the first few days. Qos had obviously known he was coining but hadn’t been too much in favor of his presence.

“If it had been my choice,” the storm giant said, “I wouldn’t have.”

Pacys silently accepted that, his fingers never betraying the musical weave he worked on.

“The Great Whale Bard was my friend;* Qos went on. “He chose you. I chose to honor both his request and his memory”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“What you normally do, bard. Tell the tale of what goes on around you.” The storm giant gestured at the surrounding city. “This is history in the making. The legend of the Taker is true. If we don’t remove him from Seros, he will destroy everything.”

“Everything?”

“The rebirth of Myth Nantar. A second beginning, one that will be of even more import to those below and above.” Qos turned and pointed back to the Dukarn Academy off the Promenade of Kupav. “The weapon we need to accomplish that is there.”

“What is it?” Pacys stopped playing for a moment and turned to look. It was the first anything had been said of a weapon.

“The Great Gate,” Qos said. “Once it’s activated, it will pull the Taker and his army through it and exile him from Seros.”

“Where will he go?”

“It won’t matter. Anywhere but here.” Qos locked his emerald eyes on the bard’s and said, “Song That Brings Bright Waters believed that you were the Taleweaver, the one destined to touch the heart of the young hero who would slay the Ravager.”

“How am I supposed to accomplish that?”

Qos shook his head. These are legends, bard. As familiar with them as you are, you should know that legends never tell everything.”

“My song will,” Pacys declared. “When it’s ready, and when I sing it, the listener will know all.” He stretched, adjusting himself on the coral. “When will you open the Great Barrier?”

“As soon as Serosian races can come to an alliance.”

“I believe the sea elves would be interested,” Pacys said. “As well as the shalarin, but the mermen remain adamant about staying apart.”

They won’t,” Qos said, “once Voalidru falls.”

I’ve overheard the sea elf warriors talking about that. The locathah keep information coming to us. The warriors believe the Taker has stretched his alliances too thin and that he doesn’t have the power to challenge Eadraal at this point.”

“The Taker is mustering his next army even as we speak.”

A cold chill raced through the old bard. “How?”

Qos held up his right hand. Green coral suddenly emerged from his palm and flattened, covering his huge hand.

“The Taker has surrounded the Whamite Isles,” Qos told him, “with an evil and ancient kelpie that sings its listeners to their deaths. He wracks the islands with massive earthquakes that will drive the people to the shore so they can hear the kelpie songs. Few, if any, will survive. When enough have died, the Taker will call the victims back as drowned ones in his service.”

Horror filled Pacys, stilling his fingers. He gazed at Qos’s palm where images formed. Pie saw the pallid figures hanging from kelpie beds in the black water, their arms and legs limp, their dead eyes red and blank, mouths hanging open. A few of them were drowning even as he watched, thrashing slightly as their lives left them.

“No,” the old bard cried hoarsely. “We can’t let this happen.”

“It already has,” Qos stated. “It must happen to make way for the only chance Seros has at peace.”

Unable to look away. Pacys watched as more people dropped into the black water, immediately tended to by the kelpie beds. No matter how great his skill nor the fact that Oghma himself had set his present course before him, he would never be able to capture the abomination being played out before his eyes.

*****

Blasted by the lightning bolt that should have killed him, Jherek hit the ground hard, so hard that the breath was driven from his lungs and he almost blacked out. He clung to his senses, though, thinking of Sabyna, Glawinn, and Azla trapped like rats in the cave. Rolling over on his side, he felt blood trickle down the side of his face.