Odyssey

CHAPTER 2

"I assure you, my lord, that no such displays of arrogance would be permitted in the palaces of the emperor. Such a boor would be summarily executed, especially one who lacked a suitable patron." The merman tried to sound sympathetic and outraged, but it was hard to feel much empathy for the fool who sat in front of him. The Master of the Games came to the fete in high dudgeon and had released a spew of bile, detailing the attack on his honor and dignity. Ambassador Laquatus thought such a pig had no dignity. Moreover, a man of true power either acted or waited to act. The pointless railing grated on the ambassador's nerves.

The merman might be mistaken for human with the exception of his coloring and the small horns that lay half hidden by his hair. Of course, under the sea, his ancestry was much more obvious. At a mental command, his legs transmuted to a great fish's tail. The long couches he favored recalled the decadence of lost civilizations but also allowed him to recline when transformed. Long gilded nail extensions flashed in the subdued light as he spoke and gestured.

"I assure you, Laquatus, that your sympathy and hospitality at the end of this difficult day will not be forgotten." The Cabal official almost gushed as he relaxed and turned to consider the temporary court that the ambassador had established. The merman offered only a nod before looking back upon the revel before him.

The embassy to the Cabal had procured a house that butted up against the bluffs surrounding the city. A huge cavern had been dug out and expanded. In the middle of the excavation, a huge pool was filled with salt water and sea plants carefully transplanted. The ambassador could feel the waves of energy that moved through the water, warming it and sending gouts of mist into the air.

The life in the pool relied on constant infusions of power from the ambassador's mages to live and even flourish. Brilliant coral and anemones lay in the waist deep water, their color and motion suggesting beds of flowers. The soporific compounds they released acted as invisible poisons to the minds of those not rendered immune, yet the revelers in the pool showed no signs of ill health.

The large lagoon was full. Competitors moved in the water, dangerous but temporarily safe to all. Like carnivores after a full meal, they appeared logy. One fighter saluted his host as Laquatus's gazes swept over him. Burly and covered with scars, he waved a prosthetic arm in greeting. The metal arm ended in serrated pincers that rasped together softly as the athlete picked another goblet from the circling waiters. His companion for the evening only cooed appreciatively as the arm gathered her in. For the amount of money the ambassador paid for the escorts, he expected nothing less.

The mechanical limb of the fighter was nothing unusual. Laquatus could see many other examples of grafted limbs and skin. Pit fighting was dangerous, and those lucky and powerful enough to survive often left the floor of the arena with less than they entered. Mechanical parts salvaged from ancient war machines were used along with limbs and hide from exotic beast and fallen warriors.

A few Cabal sponsored fighters circulated as well. Laquatus curbed his pout of distaste. Many of the local champions sported limbs from zombies and the dead. The rotting stench was almost completely covered by the perfumes filling the air, but nothing could curb the disgust many of the guests showed. The Cabal fighters relied on a steady supply of shattered bodies and dismembered fighters to supply them with new parts as the ones they reclaimed eventually failed.

The pit frog Turg lurked in the shadows, crouched behind a miniature reef with only his bulbous eyes showing above the water. The ambassador's champion had stuffed himself to the point of immobility, and Laquatus cursed his personal failure to curb the creature's insane appetite. It was so easy to be lost in Turg's simple pleasures of the flesh. The official noticed Laquatus's lack of attention and cleared his throat loudly.

The merman's manners and style automatically equated him with the nobility in the eyes of his guests. His background in fact was not distinguished, and the human good looks were a strike against him in the Mer kingdom. The emperor and the empress resembled the octopus on their house flag. Their malleable bodies and eight limbs were the standard for the court, and he was far from the current definition of beauty. He was banished to the land like a malformed child hidden from sight. He felt the injustice of his exile and contempt for the land-locked with which he must interact.

Laquatus speared a small fish that swam past. His long finger extensions were often filled with poison at the undersea court, and it amused him to use such deadly devices for harpooning snacks. The small blood slick lightened his mood, and he regarded the boor next to him.

"How terrible you say," Laquatus drawled. "The barbarian destroyed the wall of the vault."

He had of course already received a full report from his spies. Kamahl's casual display hinted that another powerful champion had entered the contest. Perhaps new alliances were in order.

"I am terribly sorry, but I do see Caster Fulla over in the corner alone." He interrupted the official who had continued to drone on like an inconsequential insect. "I would be a poor host indeed if I did not look after all my guests. Why don't you join me in extending greetings?"

"No, no," the official said hurriedly, rising and moving away quickly enough to leave a wake of disturbed water. "I have things that must be done," he tossed over his shoulder.

Laquatus was not surprised at the swift withdrawal. He transformed back to his legged form, his fins absorbed back into his body, and his tail splitting to form the limbs he must use away from the sea. Small fish swirled around his submerged limbs as scales and destroyed flesh temporarily fouled the water. He rose with initial care and waded across the pool.

Turg rose from concealment in response to a mental command and moved toward the ambassador's back. Dealing with dementia casters was often dangerous. Their grip on reality could become quite tenuous as they grew more powerful. Caster Fulla was very powerful indeed.

"Hello, my dear," the ambassador exclaimed. "I am so glad that you accepted my invitation."

The caster turned, and he waited for her eyes to focus back on the present.

Caster Fulla "Braids" appeared a weathered thirty years. Her dark skin and clothing seemed in perpetual shadow, and Laquatus felt a faint increase in tension as she looked on him fully. Her right arm brushed the short sword at her side before extending toward the ambassador. Kissing a woman's hand was a ridiculous piece of theatre most of the time, and it was particularly ridiculous now. Fulla's right arm was misshapen with scars and chunks of missing flesh. Leather and iron bracing showed conspicuously as he lowered his head to the misshapen claw that she must call a hand. He brushed his lips against the tainted flesh and slowly straightened. For her profession, Fulla was really quite comely.

Dementia casters, like many mages, called forth monsters to fight for them and serve their purposes, but even the dark magic of their Cabal brethren was twisted in bizarre ways. The trances that dementia casters fell into seemed to open the dark recesses of the mind, bringing forth hideous monsters. Many only existed in insane dreams before the power called them. Some used drugs to alter their thoughts and perceptions to bring forth ever greater horrors until they lost what remained of their sanity. Then instead of using drugs to free their minds, they engaged in a pharmacological war to retain some connection to reality. Laquatus hoped that such a fragile grip on existence would offer the handhold he needed to twist her into his service.

"It was something to do," Fulla said in a dead tone. The beads woven into her hair clinked together softly as she moved. "But it is only the same party. I've been here a hundred times before and since." Boredom filled her voice, and her eyes were focusing back into her internal world to the ambassador's irritation.

"Surely something must interest you." Laquatus hummed, a low thrum began to pick at his ears as the merman fed instructions to the magic plants and springs feeding the grotto.

The corals released bursts of drugs into the water. The ambassador felt a curious mixture of energy and languor even though he and his personal servants regularly dosed themselves with antidotes. The party seemed to grow quiet as the guests succumbed to the chemicals in the water.

"I think that we should work together." The ambassador said, crowding closer. "The bouts offer us a chance to realize tremendous profits if we could just cooperate." The merman put his hand on her maimed arm, controlling his expression at the touch of the gnarled flesh.

"I hope we might become something more than partners."

Laquatus breathed more heavily as he tried to suggest seduction. He had less than no interest in the women above the sea, but he had set this hook before. Fulla showed only irritation and broke his grip easily.

"You're boring," she said flatly. "Everything is boring now. I am going back to the Casters' Quarter. At least it is never boring."

Fulla started wading toward the steps leading into the pool. She moved surely and with purpose, showing no sign of being affected by the water. Laquatus realized that, as a dementia caster, she dealt with shifting reality often. The Casters' Quarter that she was headed for was notorious for the monsters and dark passions that gripped its inhabitants. Fulla's being was far too vicious a battlefield for the gentle persuasion of the grotto's waters. Turg, feeling his master's irritation, cut through the partygoers to grab Fulla's arm.

Braids swung around, curling inside the pit frog's arm and breaking his grip. Her sword was in her hand, and Laquatus felt a burst of pain as her blade slapped along the frog's side. The ambassador could feel the bestial rage of his champion surging to dramatic levels, and he tried to force the beast to calm.

Laquatus and the frog were tied together on many levels, feeding off of each other's emotions. The frog supplied a dramatic amount of muscle the ambassador used to cow his enemies, while the merman supplied the intelligence and drive to make Turg more than a savage animal. The pain and snub eroded his control and Turg acted to hold the caster.

"At last!" Fulla exalted. "Something interesting in this sewer."

Laquatus paused in his attempts to restrain his champion. A sewer! He was sick of insults from these land-bound simpletons. Turg attacked as the ambassador's pique weakened his hold. The frog skin grew mottled as the amphibian forced more foulness into the water. Turg leaped to the side, plowing into a crowd and sending a spray across the pool.

The ambassador could feel the fresh chemical assault against his senses. Colors seemed to strobe as the mind-altering chemicals fought his will for control of his vision. Fulla's eyes seemed to gleam as she went into a trance. The screams of the other guests began to waver as well as Turg's indirect attack merged with the suggestive chemicals of the pool. Laquatus could see an escort flailing at hallucinations.

"Close the doors!" he screamed to the servants at the gate.

The guards slammed the decorative doors shut as one pit fighter ran for the exit. A huge minotaur, it lowered its head and charged. The expensive facade cracked over the armor beneath as the giant humanoid went down, blood flowing from its nose and ears. Other guests began to stumble out of the pool.

Turg erupted from the water beside Fulla. His skin was silvery, and he was almost impossible to see. Like the octopus and cuttlefish of the ocean, the frog could blend against many backgrounds. Fulla was a veteran of the pits, and her skewed mind edited out the madness surrounding her. The frog's attack met a summoned creature that threw the combatants apart as if a bomb had exploded.

The eel that wrapped itself around the frog showed bones and frayed flesh. Turg spun to throw it off, but its weeping skin seemed to glue the creature to the frog. The amphibian's wild gyrations threw gobs of rotting meat across the chamber, which rained down on the guests and struggling servants. The ambassador could see blackjacks plied freely by his mercenaries as they struggled to contain the growing riot. Only their fight with imaginary demons prevented a total bloodbath as pit fighters went down under the swinging sacks of lead shot. Laquatus felt Turg's pain as the eel struck again and again, pumping venom into the humanoid's frame. The frog tore off portions of its own hide but hurled the writhing eel away into a group of musicians the ambassador had hired for the evening.

"Enough!" Laquatus snarled.

A bolt of energy erupted from his hands, and a ribbon of power connected the merman to the eel. Flesh boiled under the attack, and the popping of exploding bones could be heard over the cacophony of screams and curses filling the chamber. The hired servants trembled, and their bones cracked as the overflow of energy created a circle of death. Laquatus ignored them as he destroyed the last of the eel. Their cooked bodies fell beneath the waters as the ambassador cut off the stream of power.

Fulla gaily laughed from the side of the grotto, her knees drawn up like a little girl's. "A wonderful party!" she yelled as she toed a drifting corpse away. "You must invite me again." Laquatus heard his teeth grinding as he restrained himself and the amphibian warrior who crept behind her, his fists raised high.

"I will send over a supply of the oysters you so enjoyed," Laquatus said, his eyes locked with the confused merchant's. "I am sure a regular shipment can be arranged within the month." The eyes slowly cleared, and the man looked down at himself. He was dressed in waves of sea silk, the draped cloth more appropriate on a young maiden than a stocky man of fifty.

"Thank you for the loan," he mumbled. "I can't believe that I fell in the punchbowl and ruined my clothes. I promise to pay for any damage."

His eyes were clearing, and he looked at the outside of the embassy gate. The ambassador could see him trying to remember what exactly he had done. The merman sent another tendril of deceit into the man's mind, reinforcing images of drunken debauchery.

"Keep the cloth as my gift. I only regret that I ran out of clothes for the other guests." Laquatus forced out an indulgent chuckle. "A party without a little damage is hardly worth going to. I am sure everything will be shipshape by morning."

His jaw clenched as he shook the man's hand and sent him on his way with an escort. His mind drifted back to the grotto. The decomposing eel had killed off the coral and filled the cavern with an indescribably foul odor. The dead were packed into sealed barrels which must be disposed of immediately. Worse, the entire cavern must be rebuilt into a completely new environment. Laquatus was sure the false memories he implanted in the survivors would withstand most reminders of the violent episode, but it made no sense to tempt fate. The expense would be tremendous, but he could afford no flashbacks by guests at future affairs. His face grew forbidding as the last guest left his sight.

He started back to the cavern, but near the entrance he drifted off to the side. The pulse of energy he directed at the tapestry activated the quiescent spell, and he drifted through the wall. He could feel the defensive spells slamming back into place as he stepped into the small room.

Laquatus was alone with his thoughts, his ties to Turg cut. The amphibian was sleeping off the exertions of the fight and the pain Laquatus had inflicted on him to prevent the amphibian from killing the dementia caster. Fulla had proved entirely resistant to the merman's attempt to change her memories. Only the full attention of the Cabal – should such a powerful figure die – had prevented Laquatus from ordering a full scale attack to kill her. She was completely insane, but she showed no agitation and seemed in good spirits when she left. However, she was a chink in Laquatus's armor of deceit and must be dealt with in the near future. Perhaps the pits would prove particularly dangerous in the next few weeks.

The room was crudely mined and showed none of the fine workmanship that formed the rest of the embassy. Its construction had been long and laborious as Laquatus procured a stream of disposable workmen. He was forced to install the winch and thick trapdoor in the center of the room himself, with only Turg providing the muscle to ship the equipment. The merman cranked the heavy cover up, the rust falling like red snow. The remnants of some long destroyed fortress gate, its metal shielded the swirling pool of energy beneath. Without a double system of safeguards, magic users throughout the city might sense the power of the portal. It was vital that he keep his true strength hidden as long as possible. Laquatus removed his ambassadorial robes; glad to strip himself of the rags that landsmen expected him to wear. He dived into the pool.

The shock of hitting the icy water surprised him as always, and his entire frame shivered for a few seconds before he could take stock of his new surroundings. The darkness of the environment glistened with the bioluminescence of various creatures. Many of them came from the depths of the ocean and had been transferred to the deepwater caves underlying much of the continent. The shimmering pool of light that he dived into was replicated as a glowing vertical portal. The magic bridged a gap of nearly a thousand feet. Here, unknown to the city above, an army gathered to sally forth in the name of the

Mer Empire. Laquatus floated blissfully for a moment, relishing the fact that only the emperor carried more rank than the ambassador in these caves. Above he played the exiled noble, but here he was the state.

"My lord," a quiet voice seemed to whisper behind him, the tones swirling through the water. "You were not expected for some time."

Laquatus turned in the water, careful to show no surprise. A small humanoid moved from the darkness of an overhang. Long whiskers twitched, searching the waters for scent and movement. Its body was small and its limbs spindly. For a moment, it appeared harmless as it moved into the light. Then the ambassador again saw the cruel claws on its hands and feet. Their sheer size always startled him, but it was the head that was most disquieting. Huge and stuffed with glassy spearlike teeth, the mouth beckoned his gaze. There in the center danced a tongue, endlessly undulating and shifting color. Blank eyes without pupils looked blindly at him as the creature swam closer. Laquatus tore his eyes away and looked to the side. The tresias and its people were common in the underwater caves and formed a substantial portion of the ambassador's guard. Captain Satas was a loyal officer, perfect for command of the subterranean force, but his appearance was a constant source of revulsion to those who swam the sunlit seas.

"Events on the surface may require action sooner than anticipated," the ambassador answered. "We will need more soldiers stationed for assault on command." The tresias's tongue shifted faster though there was no other sign of agitation.

"My people are slow to trust and slower to travel; we will need soldiers from the empire." Satas signaled to an aide.

The warrior who swam over resembled a giant octopus caught in the process of becoming a man. The tentacles and its great bag of a head floated and moved freely in the water, but signs of an underlying structure of bone and horn peaked through. "You will carry the ambassador's words to the emperor."

The soldier left in a jet of water, his body sliding through a narrow crevice in the side of the cave. The ambassador hoped that more cephalids and other soft- body troops would be available. With malleable bodies, they could move easily through the caves and take the shortest routes. The advantages of such a heritage and its beauty made him jealous as he watched the trailing tentacles disappear. That the emperor should be blessed with such a form while the ambassador should look so… human.

"How have the tunneling crews fared?" he asked Satas, focusing on the unsightly captain to occupy his thoughts.

The engineers of the empire were continually opening new routes in the natural caves that underlay the entire continent. Connecting the largest underground rivers would allow for the rapid movement of the large bodies of troops and the giant warriors from the open seas, but the secret ways were twisted and full of dead ends. The mapping and connection of suitable caverns was a meticulous and slow process.

"Weeks before the way clears," Satas said, drifting back to the wall. "However, two more mages have mastered the door spell." The tresias moved suddenly, his whiskers whipping as he struck at a blind crayfish swimming out of a small crevice. "When more soldiers arrive we can open enough portals to flood the city with troops," he whispered and devoured the tender morsel alive.