Queen of the Depths

CHAPTER 1

Anton Marivaldi sighed at the aching pleasure as the pert, chattering brunette masseuse thumped and kneaded his muscles. He suspected that after she’d hammered all the stiffness and tension out, she might offer even more intimate services, and if so, he intended to purchase them.

He’d earned his amusements, hadn’t he? First had come tendays of imposture, of bearing up under the knowledge that even the tiniest slip could expose him. But he hadn’t slipped, and the masquerade had ended successfully in a clatter of flashing blades. His superiors had paid him well for his efforts, and he intended to squander every copper before they ordered him back into the game.

The hot, soapy bath, fragrant with scented oil, did feel truly delicious. The attendant, her thin cotton shift soaked transparent and clinging to her curves, scrubbed his shoulders, and the pressure of her hands slid him down a little deeper into the polished marble tub.

He frowned, suddenly uneasy. Going deeperfor some reason, that was bad, wasn’t it? And now that he thought about it, hadn’t the bath been a massage just a moment before?

The attendant shoved him down with startling strength, submerging him completely. He thrashed, trying to shake off her grip, and in the process, broke free of the entire dream.

Reality was equally alarming, because he was still underwater. He flailed, kicked, and stroked toward the brightness above. After a moment, his head broke the surface. He coughed and retched out the warm, salty liquid he’d obliviously inhaled and, when he was able, gasped in air instead.

That took the edge off his terror, and he recalled his float, three chunks of broken plank pegged to a crosspiece. He’d encountered the flotsam, adrift as he was adrift, an hour or so into his ordeal. It was the only reason he hadn’t drowned long ago.

He cast about for it. The hot summer sun danced on the blue, rippling surface of the Sea of Fallen Stars, making him squint. After a few anxious moments, he spotted the float. It hadn’t drifted far. Even in his weakened stateparched, starved, gashed arm feeblehe could probably swim to it and heave himself back on top.

But then again, why bother? Why prolong the misery when it would be easier just to let the float slip out of reach? He doubted drowning was a particularly easy death, but it would be over quickly.

No, curse it, he wouldn’t give up! A ship could still happen along, or he might still drift within reach of land. He paddled to the makeshift raft, gripped the splintery wood, and dragged himself back on top of it.

The effort exhausted him. He had to lie panting and trembling for a while before he found the energy to lift his head, peer down into the water, and croak, “You could have woken me when I first slipped off the float. Or helped me get back to it. Or, if you want me dead, it was a perfect opportunity to attack. Just do something.”

Swimming several yards below the surface, the creature stared back at him.

It was somewhat human in form, but slender as an elf, with dark blue skin and long, webbed fingers and toes. A proud black dorsal fin ran from its hairless brow all the way down to its rump, and some sort of white pendant hung around its neck. Round, dark goggles shielded its eyes. Though Anton had lived his entire life in the environs of the Sea of Fallen Stars, he didn’t know much about the various sentient races dwelling beneath the waves. Few of his species did. But if he wasn’t mistaken, his unwanted companion was a shalarin.

Whatever it was, he’d apparently attracted its attention at some point during the night, because he’d first noticed it gliding beneath him shortly after sunrise. Initially, given that shalarins didn’t have an especially sinister reputation, he’d hoped it would help him. When it failed to do so spontaneously, he’d tried to entreat it via pantomime.

The creature hadn’t responded in any way, and he’d wondered if it meant him harm. Though more adept with a sword or dagger, he had a small talent for sorcery, and had considered striking first with one of his spells. Ultimately, though, he’d decided he’d do better to save them for a moment when he knew for a fact he was in peril.

Often, though, the urge to lash out returned, simply because the shalarin’s lurking presence was unsettling.

At times, it even felt like mockery of his plight. What did the cursed creature want, anyway? Was it simply curious to see how long it would take him to die? If so… well, in the course of his duties, Anton had witnessed more than his share of brutality, but this sort of patient, passive cruelty was something new in his experience.

The sun hammered down until he wished it would set, even though once it did, no passing ship could possibly see him. He fought the impulse to drink saltwater and drowsed for a bit. Then he gave a start and cast wildly about.

For a second, he couldn’t tell what had jolted him back to full wakefulness. Maybe he’d simply felt himself slipping off the float again.

No. After hours of hovering close, the shalarin was swimming away. That was what had snagged his attention, even in his somnolent state.

Had the creature finally gotten bored with watching him suffer? His instincts warned him no, and they were evidently right, for after the shalarin had gone a ways, it turned and oriented on him once more. It was still interested but had apparently deemed it prudent to put more distance between them.

Was it because something was about to happen to him? He looked around, saw nothing, then dunked his face in the water to better scan the blue-green depths below. A soft, rounded thing resembling a huge sack shot up at him like a stone from a sling. Long tentacles lined with suckers trailed behind it, undulating as if to help propel it along.

After a moment of stunned incomprehension, Anton realized it was an octopus, albeit the biggest specimen he’d ever seen. Indeed, more than big enough to make a meal of a lone man afloat.

Heart pounding, he reviewed his modest store of spells. Some were of no use in combat, while others wouldn’t function underwater. But a pulse of pure force might work. He fumbled the necessary talismana bit of ram’s hornfrom his pocket and swept it through the proper arcane figure. Praying that his raw throat and thick tongue could still enunciate the words with the precision required, he recited the incantation.

Power sang like a note from a crystal bell. Visible as a streak of rippling distortion, magic shot through the water. It bashed a momentary dent in the octopus’s softness and scraped its hide.

The cephalopod recoiled. You see, Anton thought, I’m dangerous. Go eat something else.

The octopus hesitated for another moment then evidently decided its wound was inconsequential. At any rate, it hurtled onward.

Anton yanked his dagger, the straight, double-edged steel blade coated in gleaming silver, from its sheath. He’d dropped his sword when he’d first gone into the water, lest its weight drag him down. But at least he’d retained this weapon, and it would double as the necessary focus for another spell.

He recited the complex rhyme and sketched the proper sign. The dagger point carved the sigil in scarlet light on the air. A second knife, glowing red like the rune, shimmered into existence in front of the octopus and stabbed into its bulbous body.

Surely now it would turn away or, failing that, linger to try and fight the shining animate knife instead of charging on to close with Anton.

But that was not the case. It veered past the red blade and raced upward. The flying dagger pursued and might get in another jab or two before it winked out of existence, but Anton doubted that would be enough to save him.

The shalarin drifted, kicking and stroking lazily, watching.

All but certain he lacked the time, Anton nonetheless tried to materialize a second blade of force. In his haste, though, he stumbled over the mystical words, botching the spell, and the gathering power dissipated in useless stink and sizzle. Then tentacles came writhing and swirling to grab him.

He struggled to avoid them, but his scrap of timber was too small; he had no space to maneuver or retreat. He managed to drag his entire body up out of the water, to kneel atop the float, for an instant rocking and bobbing precariously. Then a loop of tentacle found his ankle, yanked tight as a garrote, and wrenched him under the surface.

Whether it realized or not, the octopus only needed to hold him under until he ran out of air, and with more of its tentacles whirling to wrap around him, it had an excellent chance of doing so. Floundering, his leg already snared, he had no hope of avoiding them all. He had to concentrate on keeping his dagger arm free.

He twisted and whipped it about to keep it from being entangled. Ringed suckers cut him as they gripped the rest of his body, and he jerked at the pain. The tentacles constricted like pythons, threatening to squeeze the precious, dwindling air from his lungs.

Round, dark little eyes staring, the octopus pulled him toward its jagged, gaping beak. He hacked and sliced at its arms. The dagger’s maker had enchanted the edge to a supernatural keenness, and it bit deep, maiming the creature’s limbs and severing one entirely.

Still it seemed unlikely to prove sufficient. But as the octopus hauled him within reach of its mouth, its whole body spasmed, and the flailing tentacles loosened. Anton tried to squirm upward out of the coils.

The tentacle wrapped around his ankle still had a grip on him and anchored him in place. He bent over, sawed at it until the tough, dense flesh parted, then swam upward.

Suddenly the need to breathe overpowered him. He expelled the stale contents of his lungs in an explosion of bubbles and helplessly inhaled. At the same instant, though, his head broke the surface.

More luck: the float was still within reach. Wheezing and praying he’d hurt the octopus badly enough to discourage it, he struggled toward the wood. He set the dagger atop the small platform then started to drag himself up.

A tentacle wrapped around his leg and jerked downward. The sudden motion rocked the float. The knife tumbled off the edge and vanished into the sea.

Panic rose, threatening to swamp his reason, and he strained to push it down and think. He didn’t have the strength to keep the octopus from dragging him back under water, and he didn’t have a weapon anymore, either. How, then, could he save himself?

There was one way, maybe. But it required him to free up a hand.

It was hard enough to hold on with both of them. As soon as he let go with the right, the strain on the left, and the arm attached to it, became all but unbearable, and he cried out at the sudden jerk.

But the pull didn’t break his grip, at least not instantly. He must have done the octopus some harm, after all, enough to weaken it a little. Perhaps, then, he had the seconds he needed.

He groaned another incantation and twisted his right hand through an arcane pass. The extremity took on a pale silvery hue, and the fingertips lengthened into talons. A keen ridge, a blade to slash and hack, pushed out from the underside, from the base of the little finger to the wrist.

When the transformation was complete, he drew a deep breath, released the float, and allowed his tormentor to drag him back under the water.

He cut and tore at the octopus, severing two more of its limbs. It hauled him to its beak, and he slashed that, too, and the soft, pulsing flesh around it. He ripped and sliced, straining for one of the dark little eyes

The world exploded into blackness. For a moment he didn’t understand; then he realized the cephalopod had discharged its ink. Its tentacles released him, and he felt a spurt of pressure. The creature was jetting away. It had had enough.

He struggled back to the surface and, as his hand melted back into its normal shape, back onto the float. The shalarin regarded him for a moment, then turned and swam away.

“That’s right,” he wheezed, “you see, I am dangerous. You’d better not hang around, or…”

Oh, to Baator with it. Even if the shalarin had been able to hear and understand, he was too spent and in too much pain to finish the threat or do much of anything else. He knew he should examine his new wounds and check to see if the old one had started bleeding again, but it simply wasn’t in him. He could only lie still, trying not to cry or whimper too much, with his hands and feet dangling in the water.

Though he somehow avoided sliding or rolling off the float again, he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Since oblivion washed away misery, he welcomed it. It might well mean the end was near, and during his lucid moments, he supposed that would be merciful. He was too stubborn to put an end to his suffering. He’d proved it twice today already. But the sun and sea might soon do it for him.

He closed his sore eyes. Just for a moment, he thought, but when he opened them, the stars were out and the water was black. He wondered if, without the sunlight baking him, he might last a few more hours and couldn’t make up his dazed, wretched mind whether to hope for it or not. Then he noticed a crested, oval-shaped object sticking up, beyond the float but almost within arm’s reach.

It was the shalarin’s head. The creature had returned and ventured close. Perhaps it reckoned he was finally weak enough to attack without any risk to itself.

The thought stirred the dregs of the resolve he generally felt in the face of danger. He tried to rear up so he could use his hands for self-defense but found he lacked the strength. All he could was flop around a little, like a dying fish in the bottom of a boat.

The shalarin surged up onto the float. The wooden surface rocked, but its new occupant centered its weight before it could overturn.

The creature gripped Anton. He struggled to shake it off but couldn’t manage that, either.

The shalarin rolled him onto his back. They were now closer than they’d ever been before, with no distorting layers of water between them, and despite the dark, he picked out details he hadn’t discerned hitherto. Slim as it was, it had a certain subtle fullness in the area that would be a woman’s bosom, as well as a breadth to its hips, that told him it was a she. Gill slits opened along her collarbone and above her ribs. A round markthe paucity of light prevented him from making out the coloradorned the center of her brow just below the beginning of the fin. The pendant was a skeletal handhuman, by the looks of itand she also wore a belt around her narrow waist. Attached were several pouches.

She unlaced one of the bags; extracted something small and roughly cubical in shape; and pressed it to his dry, cracked lips. He found the action mildly reassuring. She probably wouldn’t try to poison a man who was already dying, for what would be the point? The action suggested that, inexplicable as it seemed, she’d finally decided to help him.

Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to understand that his most pressing need was water, not food. He wondered if his swollen throat could even swallow anything solid without choking. But he’d try. Maybe the pellet, whatever it was, would help him a little, anyway.

When he sank his teeth into it, it burst into fragments and a copious quantity of oil. The liquid tasted so bitter that in other circumstances, he might have spit it out. But when he swallowed some, it assuaged his thirst like water.

He greedily consumed it and the solid mattersome sort of preserved fish? too. “Thank you,” he gasped.

The shalarin fed him two more cubes then produced a different sort of pellet. It was rounder, tasteless, and as tough to chew as the stalest ship’s biscuit he’d ever sampled. Still, hoping it would do him as much good as the other morsels had, he gnawed until it softened and broke apart.

As soon as he swallowed it, the shalarin gripped him with her long, webbed fingers. She half rolled, half shoved him toward the edge of the float.

“No!” he said. “Wait!”

But she wouldn’t relent. He struggled to resist and in other circumstances might have succeeded. He was an able wrestler and brawler, and his brawny frame surely outweighed her spindly body. But while the pellets had snatched him back from the brink of death, he was still weak as a baby, and his attempts to grapple and punch were pathetically ineffective.

The float tilted beneath him. Clasping him, the shalarin rolled down the incline, and they tumbled into the sea together. Kicking, she dragged him downward.

He kept struggling but still couldn’t break her grip. After a minute the burning in his chest demanded release. He let out the breath he’d clenched in his lungs and gulped in water instead.

It felt different than inhaling air. Water was heavier, more substantial, in his chest. But the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, and more important, he wasn’t drowning. Something the shalarin had fed himthe round morsel, he suspectedenabled him to breathe. Maybe it helped him to ignore the heightening pressure, too, considering that he didn’t need to pop his ears.

But the magic didn’t help him see. As he and the shalarin descended, the benighted waters rapidly became impenetrable to human sight. He couldn’t even make out his captor hauling him along. It reinforced his sense of utter helplessnessnot that it needed reinforcingand he simply hung limp in the shalarin’s grasp and allowed her to do as she would.

It was cold in the depths, though not insupportably so. Perhaps he had the pellets to thank for that as well. He had the feeling he was drifting in and out of awareness, but the unchanging blackness made it difficult to be certain.

Finally, a soft glow flowered in the murk. Below him stood a vast, intricate riot of coral, portions of it shining with its own inner light. Spires rose, or partly rose, from the tangled reefs like trees mired in parasitic vines. Anton might have assumed the city, half buried as it was, was an uninhabited ruin, except that the bluish cryscoral wasn’t the only source of illumination. Lamps shined in windows and along the boulevards. Altogether, the lights sufficed to reveal the tiny forms of the residents swimming to and fro.

Fascinated, Anton wished the shalarin would swim faster. He wanted to get closer and see more. But he passed out before he could.

Testing his strength and stamina, Anton swam back and forth and up and down at the end of the tether binding his ankle to the marble couch. The leathery cord reminded him unpleasantly of the octopus’s tentacles dragging him down.

Fortunately, barring a ring-shaped scar or two to go with all his others, nasty memories were all he retained from his ordeal. He was whole again, thanks to the shalarin. When he’d seen the skeletal hand hanging from her neck, he’d suspected she was a priestess of Umberlee, and she had in fact employed a cleric’s healing prayers to mend his damaged body.

What she hadn’t done was talk to him. Not once, no matter how he entreated her. Such indifference made him suspect she intended him for sacrifice or slavery. She was, after all, a servant of the Bitch Queen, goddess of drownings, shipwrecks, and all manner of deaths at sea, a power notoriously malign.

But if she did mean him ill, he didn’t intend to meet his fate like a sheep placidly awaiting the butcher’s pleasure. He didn’t know if he could truly escape, but now that he’d recovered his vigor, maybe he could at least free himself from the rope and find out what lay beyond the nondescript room in which the shalarin had imprisoned him.

Floating in the center of the chamber, he turned his attention to the complex knot securing the cord to his ankle. He’d spent hours picking at it, but it remained as tight as ever. Evidently it bore some enchantment.

With luck, his own magic would counter it. He murmured a charm, marveling once again that he could speak as plainly as if he were on land. In fact, he could function here without much difficulty of any kind. He saw clearly and moved quickly, without the water hindering him. Plainly, the enchantment must have been responsible for that as well, and he wondered if such conditions only prevailed within this one building or if the entire submerged city was equally accommodating.

The knot squirmed and untied itself. He smiled, swam to the doorway, and peeked out into the larger room beyond.

As he’d suspected, it was a temple of Umberlee, dominated by a towering statue of the Queen of the Depths herself. Bigger than a giant, clad in her high-collared cape and seashell ornaments, the deity had risen from the waves to smash a cog with her trident. Sharks cut through the water to seize the mariners toppling overboard.

Smaller sculptures, representations of predatory sea creatures and hideous things that might be aquatic demons, lurked in alcoves. Mosaics depicting Umberlee’s battles against Selune, Chauntea, and other gods adorned the high ceiling and walls. Heaped offerings covered the several altars and overflowed onto the floor.

It was all rather magnificent in a grim sort of way, but somewhat surprisingly, at the moment no one else was here to tend or marvel at the splendor. Anton hesitated then swam to the nearest of the altars to see if some worshiper had given Umberlee a weapon.

A cutlass caught his eye. He pulled the short, curved sword from its scabbard and came on guard, testing the balance and weight. It felt good in his hand, so light and eager that, like his lost dagger, it must have magic bound in the blade. He sheathed it, buckled it onto his belt, turned, and froze.

The shalarin floated in a big arched doorway that likely led outside the temple. In the days she’d tended him, he’d had a chance to observe other details of her appearance. Her dark blue skin wasn’t scaly like a fish’s, as he initially imagined, but smooth like a dolphin’s. The round mark on her brow was red. Here in the depths, she dispensed with her goggles, revealing eyes that were glistening black, all pupil. They gave him a level stare.

“It is death to rob Umberlee,” she said in a cold contralto voice. “Fortunately, you have not. It is her will that you take the blade.”

“You’re talking.”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t before.”

“I did not understand your language and doubted you understood mine. I had to trade for this.” She extended her hand, drawing his attention to a striped tiger-coral ring. “Its magic enables me to speak to you.”

“Oh.” His ordeal and its bizarre aftermath must have muddled his wits because that simple explanation for her silence had never occurred to him. “Lady, I’m grateful for your care, and I mean no harm. I only took the cutlass because it alarmed me that you kept me tied and never answered when I spoke.” She might at least have given him a reassuring pat on the shoulder or something.

“I kept you secured so you wouldn’t wander and come to harm. And because you now belong to Umberlee.”

He hesitated. “Exactly what do you mean?”

“What I say. Tell me your name.”

“Anton Marivaldi, out of Alaghon, in Turmish.” He wondered if the place names meant anything to her.

“I am Tu’ala’keth, waveservant, member of the Faiths Caste, keeper of Umberlee’s house in Myth Nantar.”

He assumed Myth Nantar was the name of the city. He’d heard vague reports of such a place, a metropolis where the various undersea races, and even a few expatriates from the surface world, dwelled together. “I understood that you’re a divine. Are you saying you laid claim to me somehow, in your goddess’s name?”

A glimmering membrane flicked across the blackness of her eyes. Perhaps it was a shalarin’s equivalent of a blink. “Yes. What is unclear?”

“Among my folk, you can’t just take possession of another person, even if you save his life.”

“I did not; Umberlee did.” She waved a hand at their surroundings. “What do you see?”

He didn’t know what she wanted him to say. “Riches. Sacred things.”

“Neglect!” the shalarin snapped. “All the treasures here are old. Who now offers at Umberlee’s altars?”

“In my world, every seafarer who wants to come safely back into port.”

“But few here, where every creature should adore her. I will tell you the tale, Anton Marivaldi, and you will understand why and how she has chosen you.”

“Please.” He needed to comprehend what she had in mind so he could talk her out of it.

“How much do you know of shalarins?”

He shrugged. “You live in the Sea of Fallen Stars. You’re no great friends to humanity but no foul scourge like the sahuagin, either.”

“We did not always live here. Our race was born in the Sea of Corynactis.”

“I never heard of it.”

“It lies on the far side of the world. Three thousand years ago, some of my folk found their way here. But the mystic gate connecting the two seas closed, trapping them, and so they, and their descendants, were exiled from their home.”

“That’s unfortunate,” he said, but he couldn’t imagine what it had to do with him.

“The exiles endured many griefs and misfortunes. One was losing touch with the gods of their forefathers. Those deities apparently had no interest in Faerun or lacked the ability to project their power into these waters.”

Anton waved his hand, indicating the statue of Umberlee. “It looks as if your ancestors adapted. They started worshiping the gods who rule hereabouts.”

“Yes,” said Tu’ala’keth, “and were surely the better for it, for no deity is greater than Umberlee. Her favor enabled them to prosper. Yet now the faithless idiots turn their backs on her!”

More puzzled than ever, Anton shook his head. “Why?”

“Because two years ago the gate to the Sea of Corynactis opened againpermanently this time.” She smiled grimly, or at least he took it for a smile. He wasn’t sure her changes of expression always signified the same emotions they would in a human face. “That is a shalarin secret, by the way. It is death for you to know.”

“In that case, thanks so much for telling me.”

“You must know in order to understand. Since the gate opened, the shalarins of the two realms can communicate, and with that communication has come a great curiosity, an enthusiasm”her tone invested the words with bitter scorn”for the religions of our ancestors, even though those feeble godlings still lack the strength to manifest here. Folk pray to them in preference to Umberlee.”

Anton could understand why a worshiper might prefer another deitymost any other deityto the savage, greedy Bitch Queen, but saw no advantage in saying so. “Maybe they’ll return to Umberlee once the novelty of the new cults wears off.”

Tu’ala’keth glared at him. “I am a waveservant. I can’t simply wait for them to change their foolish minds. It is my duty to bring them back.”

“With my help?” What in the name of the Red Knight could she possibly be thinking?

“If they weren’t blind and deaf, they would have returned already, gashing their flesh and shedding their blood to beg their goddess’s forgiveness. At her bidding, a host of dragons has banded together and started ravaging Seros, to punish those who failed to give her her due. The entire commonwealth is in peril.”

Anton frowned. “Lady, with respect, for the past few months, something called a Rage of Dragons has been occurring. All across Faervin, wyrms are uniting to slaughter and destroy. The shalarins’ problem isn’t unique.”

“It still embodies the wrath of Umberlee. Otherwise, the army of Seros would have destroyed the drakes, instead of the other way around.”

“Well… maybe.”

“I proclaimed that only Umberlee could save us. I preached it as clearly as I explained it to you. But no one heeded. Finally I forsook Myth Nantar for the wilds of the open sea. It is there one feels closest to the Queen of the Depths, and there, I hoped, I would hear her speak, instructing me on how to achieve her ends.”

“That’s when you stumbled across me?”

“Yes. I lingered to watch your death as a form of meditation. When the sea takes a life, it is a holy event. Umberlee reveals herself to those with eyes to see “

Anton reckoned he, too, might be starting to “see.” “But I didn’t die.”

“No,” said Tu’ala’keth. “Hour after hour, you endured. Even the octopus could not kill you. It became clear that Umberlee wished you to survive, and since she guided me to you, it had to be so you could aid me in my mission. So, quickly as I could, I fetched the items and prepared the spells that enabled me to rescue you.”

“I’m grateful, but truly you’ve made a mistake. I have no idea how to help you. I’m no priest or philosopher or orator, to lure your truant followers back.”

“What are you, then? Tell me, and it will become apparent exactly how you are to serve.”

“There isn’t much to tell. I’m a trader. I took a ship to sell lumber and buy metals. During the voyage, I passed the time throwing dice. I was lucky two days straight, only not really so lucky after all, because a couple of sailors decided I was cheating and attacked me. One knifed me, and I fell overboard. I can only assume that no one but my ill-wishers realized what had happened because the carrack sailed on and left me.

Her black eyes bored into him. “You lie. You use magic. You fight well. You cannot belong to the Providers Caste.”

“I don’t know how it works among shalarins, but there’s nothing to stop a human merchant from learning a little sorcery or training with a blade. Sometimes it comes in handy.”

“It may be so. Still you are a liar.”

Anton was actually a highly proficient liar. Otherwise, someone would have killed him long ago. Either Tu’ala’keth was suspicious by nature, she had an enchantment in place to tell truth from falsehood, or she possessed an unexpected and inconvenient knack for reading human beings.

However she’d caught him, he had a hunch a second lie would prove no more convincing than the first. It might simply provoke a disciple of cruel Umberlee into trying to torture the truth out of him.

In other circumstances, he might have risked it, and if it came to it, resisted the torment as best he could. But what would a shalarin care about the true nature of his business or the manner in which he’d come to grief? With no stake in the affairs of the surface world, what would she do with the information? Maybe it would do no harm to confide in her.

“All right,” he said, “the fact is, I’m a spy in the service of my homeland.” He hesitated. “Do you have spies here under the sea?”

She sneered. “Of course.”

“Well, my usual chore is to ferret out information concerning pirates and smugglers, so others can catch and punish them as they deserve. But a month ago my superiors set me a new task. Have you ever heard of the Cult of the Dragon?”

“No.”

“I guess you sea folk aren’t susceptible to their particular kind of madness. Lucky you. They’re a secret society of necromancers, priests of Bane, Talos, and similar powers, and common lunatics, laboring to make a certain prophecy come to pass.”

“If the prophecy is true, it will come to pass regardless.”

“Don’t tell me, tell them. The prophecy says that one day, undead dragons will rule the world, and the cult intends to make it sooner rather than later. As near as I can make out, they believe the dracolich kings will favor them and elevate them above the common herd of humankind.

“Anyway, a couple months back, the paladins of Impiltura land on the northern shorediscovered that of late, the cultists have been more active and advanced their schemes farther than any sane person could have imagined. They’ve established a number of hidden strongholds across Faerun. The purpose of the refuges is to transform dragons into liches, and supposedly, wyrms have been flocking to them and consenting to the change as never before, because they fear losing their minds to frenzy. Evidently undead dragons are immune.

“The Rage has produced destruction and misery enoughyou shalarins seem to know all about that but it’s nothing compared to what a horde of dracoliches will do. So the Lords of Impiltur sent out the word: People in every realm need to find and destroy the cult enclaves before they can accomplish their task.”

“You were one of the seekers.”

Anton grinned. “Yes, and it was just my rotten luck that it turns out the whoresons do have a stronghold somewhere in the region. My guess is on one of the Pirate Isles. If I were pursuing a plan to topple every monarch and ruling council in the world, I’d hide out in a place without governance or law.”

“You say you guess. You did not learn for certain?”

“No. I had a lead and tried to follow up. At some point I apparently made a mistake, and some cultist tumbled to the fact that I was sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. The maniacs sent abishaiwinged demons with a dash of dragon thrown into deal with me.

“They caught up with me on a carrack sailing out of Procampur. We fought, and I got the worst of it. Finally they cornered me against the rail, and I jumped overboard. If I hadn’t, they would have torn me apart.

“The move worked, after a fashion. For whatever reason, they didn’t keep after me. But the ship didn’t come back for me either. Maybe the abishai killed all the sailors. Or perhaps the captain decided he didn’t need a passenger who lured demons down on his vessel.

“The rest you know. I drifted, and you found me.” Tu’ala’keth floated silently, pondering. Suddenly she grinned. “Of course! It is clear!” “What is?”

“This Cult of the Dragon. They must be mighty wizards with a profound knowledge of wyrms to warp their lives into undeath and leave their minds intact.”

“I suppose.”

“You will help me find them, for that is your craft. They will then tell me how to stop the dragons threatening Seros. I will do so in Umberlee’s name, and afterwards, the other shalarins will return to her altars in penance and thanksgiving.”

Anton shook his head. “You don’t understand. There’s no reason to assume the cult has what you need, and it wouldn’t matter even if they do. They worship dragons. They won’t help anybody hurt or hinder them.”

“If they won’t give up their secrets willingly, we will take them.”

He laughed. “Just you and me, you mean, against a dragon or three, a whole coven of spellcasters, and the Grandmaster only knows what else? I know you’re a reasonably powerful cleric in your own right, but that’s ridiculous.”

“You only believe so,” she said, “because your lack of faith blinds you. You look at this moment and you see only chancecoincidence. These elements are there, but they make a pattern, and the pattern conveys meaning.”

“Look: If we were to march into the cult’s fortress and announce ourselves, all it would do is alert them to the fact that people are searching for them, and that they haven’t covered their trail well enough to keep from being found. Then, after they killed us, they’d take additional precautions. That would make it all the more difficult for somebody else to locate them, descend on them in force, and wipe them out.

“And that needs to happen, for everyone’s sake. A horde of dracoliches will pose a threat to your Seros and Myth Nantar as much as the surface world.”

“What matters is the restoration of Umberlee’s worship. Everything else must fall out as it will.”

“Lady, I respectfully disagree.”

Tu’ala’keth peered at him as if honestly mystified by his intransigence. “You must help. As I explained, your life, like mine, belongs to the Queen of the Depths to spend as she sees fit. If I must punish you to convince you, I will.”

“No. You won’t. I’m leaving.” He swam toward the arch, and she centered herself in the space to bar his way.

Hoping it would persuade her to stand aside, he pulled the cutlass from its scabbard. At the moment, she had no weapon but her spells. Of course, those were formidable enough.

She sneered. “Do you truly believe a blade Umberlee put in your hand will cut a waveservant?”

“I think it might,” he said, though her apparent faith in her own invulnerability, crazy as it appeared, was almost enough to make him wonder.

“Think on this, then. Even if you could kill me, what would happen then?”

“Myth Nantar is supposedly full of sea-elves, mermen, and by your own account shalarins who don’t care a snake’s toenail about Umberlee anymore. Maybe I can talk one of them into helping me back to dry land.”

“After you’ve killed one of their own? How would your folk treat a stranger who’d done the same? Even if somebody did decide to help you, do you really believe it would do any good? You, the slayer of Umberlee’s servant, would still be at the bottom of the sea, where all creatures live only at her sufferance. Rest assured she would avenge me before you could escape.”

He hesitated. If it was a bluff, she was selling it well.

Maybe the sensible course was to play along at least until he was back on land. It was possible that with her powers, Tu’ala’keth could even help him locate the cult’s lair. Tymora knew, he hadn’t had any luck on his own.

He let his shoulders slump as if in resignation. “All right. You win. I’m at yourand your goddess’s service.”

For now. But, Lady, you will never see your goal.