Odyssey

CHAPTER 25

Kamahl wondered if he should move down the coast. He had become a successful fighter though still not accepted by the arena staff. He was popular with the crowd, but his string of victories had become predictable. The lim-ited pool of opponents was drained of any challenge after the second week. Seeing the same faces day in and out was one of the reasons he left the mountains.

But he would stay a little longer. One possible lead might yet yield fruit. Girter, one of the young men he was friendly with, knew of secret shipments between the empire and the fighting pits. A servant of the Cabal had come to Borben to discuss the gladiatorial companies that toured the continent.

The chandler's son told Kamahl that the official had ties to the empire. He definitely dealt with the shipment of precious cargo to and from the mer. The barbarian left word at the traveler's inn that he wished to talk with the go-between. A substantial portion of his winnings over the past weeks was included to convince the man to come.

He stepped outside the hillside tavern to look down to the town. Instead of staying near the arena, the official had taken dockside accommodations. The need to conduct business down by the water belied the official explanation for the man's journey. Perhaps he might learn something to direct his quest.

The fishing fleet straggled back in, the docks beginning to bustle. Wagons hauled the catch away as a few freight wagons waited on the pier. The lighter ferrying cargo and special items to the ships was out in the bay. There were ships waiting at the anchorage that had been there for quite some time. Perhaps the goods were particularly important to the empire. He needed to get on board. Perhaps one of the fishermen's brothers could take him out.

Kamahl felt reality pause, and a great noise filled the world. He dropped as a pulsing headache ripped through his head. Rage and bile seemed to wash him away, and he drew a knife to defend himself from attack. A spell of enormous power and damage was being worked, the disturbance seeming to fill the sky. Birds and farm animals yowled as the barbarian lost himself in the discordant chorus.

How long he leaned against the building he did not know. A pitcher of beer in his face broke his fascination with the magical noise. He thanked the barmaid clearing the obstruction from the inn door. Kamahl shook himself and walked farther away from the building. He had never felt a spell of such strength. His prize must be close by, but there was no sign of anything strange. The town looked perfectly calm as the fisherman and wagon drivers went about their business. Then something dragged the barbarian's eyes back to the sea.

The boats along the pier lowered as water flowed out of the inlet. The bay continued to drop, and soon boats were hung up. The catch of fish fell to the exposed mud below.

Interested, people went toward the bay to see the unusual event. Here and there a few figures started running as hard as they could for the hills. More and more people fled, and he wondered why. A flicker of movement brought his eyes to the horizon. Something was coming toward all points of the coast. The line grew to a wave striking the beaches far in the distance. He realized the size of the disaster as he saw tall trees stripped away. He looked directly to the sea, the hilly peninsula shielding him from the closest view. A roar smothered screams as a wall of water carried over the hills and fell down the slope toward the town. Now everyone in sight ran for higher ground.

The hatred and spite of the spell were nauseating as Kamahl started higher into the hills, not knowing how high the water might carry. The sound of smashing houses and shops tore the day apart. The barbarian wondered if anyone would survive the disaster. He stumbled as a new note of magic, just as strong as the first, stung his senses. The orb's magic was what drove the wave he guessed, but the bitter emotions drained away as the wave sped toward him. The magic was changed, and Kamahl knew the orb no longer belonged to the sea. Then a blast of air pushed him over, and the water came down.

Laquatus saw the orb lose its beauty, the blue ocean fading away until only gleaming metal remained. The imperial bastard, Aboshan, had cost him everything. The orb still radiated tremendous power as he looked at it, but it no longer resonated with his soul. His spirits sank lower as he realized he might be trapped here with Fulla. Who knew what insane spell she would cast now that she held the orb in her hands?

The dementia caster held the orb absently as she kicked through the destruction, sending water high into the air. Another aftershock threw her off her feet, and Laquatus slowly sat up, hoping she would lose her grip on the orb. Instead she surfaced from the water spitting a stream of the filthy liquid into the air.

I need a spell to distract her while she played likes a lunatic, he thought. If he could just capture the orb maybe he could recall its glory. But he could not grip any magic with his mind. The wound inflicted by Turg's death was crippling. The gaping hole of his bond allowed his magic to flow uncontrolled. If he were more prepared, he might have avoided it, but for now his spells pushed power to one no longer alive. An infinite void swallowed his effort, and he could not force the mental focus to end the drain.

Fulla seated herself on the stairs, bored with her horseplay. She looked at the guard enveloped by her predatory plant. She began to throw debris at him. Laquatus stood up and started toward her. The body of his former sovereign floated past, and he shoved it aside, ignoring it like a forgotten toy. The room plunged into darkness as the palace light system failed. The merman tried to coax forth light, but the Cabal member called up a luminescent mold that coated the walls.

Fulla glance absently at the orb but turned to the rising water. The air was becoming stuffy. She tucked the powerful item under her legs and looked at the ambassador. He hid his disbelief at her dismissive attitude toward the orb.

Laquatus decided that her resistance to its attractions was related to her resilience to his own magical attacks on her mind. Dementia casters simply lived in a different world. Their perceptions of reality were so strange that perhaps the orb appeared mundane. Maybe it replicated some other effect they experienced often. Regardless, she showed little interest, and perhaps he could procure the sphere from her at a later date.

"We must escape," he told her, sitting down close to her but out of sword's reach. "This air bubble will disperse sooner or later. Unless you wish to die, you must flee to the surface."

"Why not swim away, little fish?" she asked, kicking the orb back and forth between her feet. "It is a big pond, and you are old enough to be on your own."

Laquatus curbed his first answer.

There was every chance some of the guards survived to report his treachery. At this very moment, his name might be added to the execution warrants that he signed this morning. The blanks concealed in his office with the emperor's seal already imprinted seemed a very bad idea now. The orb might be the only thing rescued from this debacle. If only he had brought his poison rings.

"You saved me, and I owe you a debt I can never repay," he said, curbing his nausea at the sentiment. "Perhaps working together we can reach the surface." If she would just help him clear the way, she could drown. A corpse had no possessions.

Another shock collapsed the stairs, and they fell into the water. The ambassador saw that she swam with difficulty though she still managed to find the orb. She struggled to one of the few shelves still standing.

Next time she is in the water I'll pull her under, Laqua-tus promised himself.

Fulla looked down at the merman who stood smiling like a shark. The bodies, the threat of death, and the danger of betrayal was comforting-just like home. If she returned to the Cabal it would be a disaster. Her mission to the sea had failed. Despite her manic outer denial, she could feel depression threatening to crush her. Returning as a failure was not an option.

But perhaps she could return to the arena instead of being bundled off to distant postings. She weighed the orb in her hand. She found it mildly interesting, but others seemed to covet it beyond all reason. Even now the ambassador waited for his chance to steal it. Only the chance that he might become interesting kept him alive.

It was dark and cold in the vault. Her ears started to hurt as the last remnants of the air supply spell failed. It was time to go home. Home, where a person could find a decent graveyard and strangers could disappear without awkward questions.

Laquatus meant nothing to her. She needed no aid to escape from something as simple as a collapsing underwater building. The plant still held a pocket of air though the earthquake might rip it free any moment. She concentrated, calling into being a mount she had studied for a long time.

The travel fish faded into being. Its flesh was transparent, and the dementia caster could see the bones and organs pulsing inside its monstrous body. It flopped and wallowed in the shallow water, the wave it created reinforcing its gigantic size. She watched the ambassador jump for safety as the fish smashed whatever was in its way.

"Be still," she commanded, and it was. Laquatus was talking, but she ignored the words lost in her new creation. She stood before a blind eye, the monster unable to see except through her. The pressure was increasing, and she knew that the chamber must be moments away from catastrophic failure.

The fish turned, and its mouth gaped open, the toothless jaws stretching wide, inviting her in. She laughed, waved to the merman, and leaped into the monster's throat. She slid down the tube to the stomach still able to see the outside. It reminded her of her childhood, and she wished she could go again but time was running out. She knelt in the monster's belly, the chamber draining of the water that accompanied her on her entrance. The travel fish transported its passengers inside, and the room expanded as she stood up, her gigantic steed responding to her will.

She could see Laquatus hurling himself into the fish. She wondered if the monster should gulp him down in pieces, for the jaws were strong enough to shatter bone. No time for such rough horseplay she decided and turned her attention to the outside.

Fulla dispelled her plant, the rotting vines vanishing.

The cork holding the air pocket down ruptured. The corpses caught in its grip floated free as the travel fish wriggled through the hole to the first room and the trap door. The chamber was full of debris, but the fish blindly searched the murky water and surged out of the bedrock.

The palace gaped open above them, a direct path to the ocean torn through the structure. The travel fish surged up, its motion jostling the dementia caster against the ambassador. She half-drew her sword, hating his touch.

"Wait, good caster," Laquatus cried, throwing himself back against the stomach wall. "Remember our agreement on shipping treasures back to the Cabal. I can still be of use."

The travel fish shot out of the palace. Huge rents in the sea floor sent gas bubbling to the surface. There were few signs of other survivors. The Cabal operative imagined them swimming far away. The empire was decimated, and the noble who had overseen its fate sat beside her. She laughed and loosed the ball the fascinated Laquatus so.

Fulla looked at the sphere as the fish swam up through the depths. The orb called to her, entreating her to commune, telling her its name-Mirari-but she ignored it. Most of her attention went to directing her steed. The glassy fish swam away from the destruction and violence that even now reduced the mer capital. Fulla turned the beast to avoid the currents rising from the sea floor.

The dementia caster regarded her stolen prize. The Mirari had turned from liquid metal as she rescued it from the dead emperor's grasp. A ball of dirt lay in her hands, the black soil reminding her of a grave. She believed the change inconsequential as her senses often misled her. Still, something lay beneath the surface, and part of her ached to raise it up. Perhaps the orb really did promise power. She noticed Laquatus's trepidation as he regarded her in the dull light glowing from the fish's belly.

Fulla chuckled and tossed the sphere into the air, laughing harder as the ambassador barely restrained himself from diving for it. She opened a pouch and dropped it in, closing the leather bag without hesitation.

"It offers you what you want, not what you need," she crowed to Laquatus, thumping her purse. The call of the globe was lost and muted in the fractured horror of her mind, its visions overwhelmed by the dementia of her calling. Grim merriment filled the undead steed as she directed it to shore, leaving the corpse of a kingdom behind her.