45: UNDER THE SEA
Talea’s memory The pirate haven of Da’utunse
Just after fighting Xivan
The dancer sat up as Qown healed her injury and pulled the veil from her head. The woman underneath was a handsome woman of mixed Khorveshan and Zheriasian ancestry. Her expression was murderous.
“Galen, what are you doing here?” the woman demanded.
Galen’s eyes widened. “Kalindra?”
“Let’s have a reunion later,” Talea suggested. “Right now, we need to find someplace secure. Any suggestions?”
Sheloran bent down and picked up Xivan’s discarded sword, now shaped like a spring. “Pick a hospitality house at random. But any brothel will have rooms rentable by the hour or night with better security than a hospitality house.”
“Why do we keep ending up in brothels?” Qown asked plaintively.
Sheloran was clearly still waiting on Galen’s answer. “Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Galen said. He stopped and narrowed his eyes at both Talea and Kalindra. “And then we’re going to have a talk.”
They found a brothel that looked fancy enough for discretion and good security and paid for their own room. It was probably cleaner than a room at a hospice would have been. The room was large, the bed enormous. The velvet house owner never even blinked at their party size or when they suggested that they would need dining arrangements for everyone.
Talea had to admit, the low chairs and individual tables did make it much easier to accommodate their numbers. A velvet house probably wouldn’t have had a table large enough for them to all sit together.
“Let me look at your wound again,” Qown said to Kalindra.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re fine when I say so,” Qown snapped.
Talea smiled. Qown had lost his patience.
“So if that was your Xivan, one assumes it wasn’t the real Lash,” Galen said. “And you weren’t kidding when you said Xivan would find us. I apologize for not taking you more seriously.”
“I don’t … I don’t know what happened back there,” Talea admitted. “But I agree Xivan is not the Lash. And she definitely can’t control the dead. So someone else must have had Grimward.” She chewed on her lip. “You don’t think it was the ratty little man, do you?”
“I think if it were Boji, we wouldn’t have survived our first ambush,” Sheloran said. “So no.”
Meanwhile, Qown had finished looking at Kalindra and pulled Worldhearth from under his shirt. “We have a problem.”
Galen waited for a moment, then motioned for him to continue.
“I follow heat sources,” Qown explained. “And the dead don’t really … have any. That’s going to make it difficult—if not impossible—to figure out where Xivan went. Our plan hinged on that.” He grimaced. “It never occurred to me that the entire crew would be dead.”
“Xivan isn’t the one you need to follow,” Sheloran said. “Boji is. Boji looked alive.”
Qown opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Right! Right.” He hurried over to a chair, sat down, and started staring into the rock’s heart.
Galen watched him for a moment before motioning for everyone else to pay attention to him. “Okay,” he said. “Now, Kalindra … mind explaining what the hell you’re doing here?”
Kalindra stared at him with narrowed eyes. “You first.”
Galen didn’t answer.
Kalindra leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest.
Finally, Sheloran rolled her eyes. “We’re here to find Grimward so we can raise your husband from the dead.”
Kalindra blinked at her. “That’s … How do you even know about Grimward?”
“Weirdly enough, the wizard Relos Var told us,” Galen said. “And we’re not helping him, but I haven’t stopped looking over my shoulder. Figure he could show up at any time. Now you, Kalindra.”
“So this is Jarith’s wife?” Talea said, desperately hoping for an explanation before she accidentally said the wrong thing. She only knew of one Kalindra, and that was a Black Brotherhood assassin and …
Okay. Probably the same Kalindra. Small world.1
“Yes,” Galen said, “and what have you done with Nikali?”
“I left him in good hands,” Kalindra said. She rubbed her forehead and chuckled. “And as it happens, I’m here for the same reason you are. The exact same reason. Even before Thaena—” She closed her eyes. “Grimward’s my only chance.”
“I’m sorry, Kalindra,” Galen said. “I really am. But hey, at least we’re much closer than we were, and it’s looking like someone in the Lash’s organization really does have it, so … just a matter of convincing them to give it up.” He gave Kalindra a hard look. “Although to be perfectly clear, we’re not handing over Sheloran.”
“Thank you, darling,” Sheloran said distractedly as she concentrated on the ruined sword.
Kalindra frowned. “Why does the Lash want Sheloran?”
“Not the Lash. Or yes, I suppose the Lash, but Xivan was hunting for Sheloran before she started pretending to be the Lash,” Talea said. “It’s not about Sheloran at all. Xivan just needs help, and she’s being incredibly stupid about how she’s asking for it.” She felt a flash of heat, of anger and frustration.
“Okay, well, then I say our situation hasn’t especially changed,” Kalindra said. “We’re still trying to locate and kill the Lash.”
“No!” Talea protested.
Sheloran ran her hand over Xivan’s imchii, straightening it, or rather returning it to its original gentle arc. “This is Vanaj Mezian’s work. I’d know it anywhere.”
Talea blinked. “Xivan’s father made it.”
“So her father is Mezian? Well, then. Huh.” Sheloran laughed, although its edge was a little too dark to be considered delight. “He was one of our best weaponsmiths. Quite famous for the fine quality of his blades.” She smiled at the sword. “It is unfortunate for Xivan that her father chose to make this sword out of a rare alloy that my father invented. I imagine she’d grown rather used to most wizards having no idea what her sword was made from and thus no idea how to warp the blade.”
Talea seemed intrigued in spite of herself. “What’s the alloy?”
“My father’s idea of humor,” Sheloran explained. “It’s called sheloran.”2
Galen coughed.
“Really?” Qown leaned away from the table, eyes wide and unblinking.
“Oh, it could have been worse,” Sheloran said. “Can you imagine if he’d named me shanathá? Or drussian.” She mock shivered.
“No, not that,” Qown exhaled and covered his face for a moment before lowering his hands. “I meant I found her. I found Xivan.”
Talea’s heart skipped. She immediately crossed over to the table and sat down across from Qown, taking his hands. “Is she all right? Where is she?”
Kalindra scowled at the man. “What are you—” Her mouth dropped open as she saw what the healer was holding. “You have Worldhearth? How do you have Worldhearth?”
Qown blinked at the two women, clearly unsure who he should be answering. Finally, he said to Talea, “She seems well? I mean, sort of well. Well maybe isn’t a word I would ever use to describe Xivan, though.”
“It’s fine,” Talea said. “She’s been dead for years.”
“Anyway, it was tough finding Boji, but fortunately the nice thing about us being out here in the middle of the ocean is that fire really stands out, heat-wise, and Boji lit a fire to keep warm. Finding Xivan still would have been impossible, but—” Qown chewed on his lip. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Go on,” Talea urged.
“It looks like she’s being controlled,” Qown said, “by the real owner of Grimward. She has no choice but to do whatever it says.”
“I can’t help but notice their interests seemed to have aligned when it comes to kidnapping me,” Sheloran commented.
“Yes, well…” Qown squeezed Talea’s hands back. “Remember how everyone says the Lash has a kraken? It’s kind of … true.”
“Oh, how lovely,” Galen said.
“I know it’s true,” Kalindra said. “That’s why the best time to move against the Lash was after he came to port.” The woman frowned. “But the Lash I knew was a man. And not undead.3 That’s who I’d expected to find. That’s who I expected to kill.”
“Right,” Qown said, “but everyone has it wrong. You see, it’s the kraken. The kraken is the Lash.”
No one said anything.
“What?” Galen said.
“The kraken. The Daughter of Laaka—she’s the Lash. She’s also undead and has Grimward.”
Kalindra sat down slowly. “Are you telling me that someone took a creature that’s almost entirely immune to magic and made her almost entirely immune to physical damage as well? And gave her the ability to animate the dead?” Her voice went up several octaves on the last part of that sentence.
“… yes?” Qown said, wincing.
“Right. Just checking.” Kalindra slammed a fist against one of her legs. “Perfect. Really, really love this development. Taja just fucking loves me.”
“It’s nothing personal,” Talea muttered.
“It gets worse,” Qown said.
“Of course it does,” Galen said.
“Suless came to visit.”
Talea felt her pulse skip so hard she felt faint. Then she noticed that no one else seemed to be reacting the same way. Except for Qown, of course.
“The witch-queen Suless,” Talea whispered, then shook her head. “But that makes no sense. Xivan hates Suless.”
“Are we … are we talking about the god-queen Suless?” Kalindra looked bemused.
“Yes,” both Qown and Talea said together.
“I thought she was dead,” Kalindra said.
“She’s not,” Qown assured her. “And Xivan does still hate Suless, but the Lash wasn’t allowing Xivan to attack. Suless wants to work with the Lash, and the Lash seems to be agreeing because she thinks Suless can help her cure her girlfriend’s insanity.” He made a face. “Uh, I didn’t realize that Daughters of Laaka could—”
“What? Do you think it can’t work without a Son of Laaka?” Talea laughed. “You know better than that, Qown.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course,” Qown agreed. “Apparently, said girlfriend is … uh … Drehemia. I assume she means the dragon.”
“I’m not really, uh, up on my dragons,” Galen said. “Which one’s Drehemia?”
“Oh, she’s the dragon of shadows,” Qown said. “Of secrets and lost knowledge. If Drehemia traveled near, you’d likely never realize it until she attacked. She’s darkness and mystery.”
“Sounds lovely,” Sheloran said.
“Vol Karoth’s awakening—” Qown shut his eyes for a minute and seemed to collect himself. “Vol Karoth’s awakening has affected Drehemia, and she’s gone on a rampage. The Lash is concerned—desperately worried—and wants to know how to fix her. And for some reason, she thought your mother would have that ability? Although honestly, I don’t see how.”4
“My mother’s made it something of her life’s work to study and cure mental troubles,” Sheloran murmured. “If it were any normal case, I would say there was no one better, but I fear this isn’t any normal case.”
“No,” Galen agreed. “I would say not.”
“So Suless convinced the Lash that the library at Devors has the cure and that the Lash should … attack it.” Qown flailed a bit.
Kalindra closed her eyes. “Nikali. My son is there.”
“Okay, so that’s a problem,” Galen said. “Not that I think we should just let a Daughter of Laaka attack the Monastery at Devors, but surely their defenses can handle that, right?”
“Why would they?” Kalindra replied. “Quur is concerned with practical defenses. Who would suggest putting up wards meant to deal with a kraken? Those are creatures of myth. If you live in the empire, you probably don’t believe they exist. The idea that one would attack an entire island—that’s ludicrous.”
“And yet,” Sheloran said. “The monastery is warded against dragons and demons. If it can keep them out, it can almost certainly stop the Lash. The real problem is that any Quuros ships in those waters won’t have those protections.”
“We have to warn them,” Qown said.
Talea scowled and threw her arms over her head and she walked around. “Why … why did Thaena have to move her stupid cup? I could fix this if only I had it!”
“Cup?” Qown asked.
“I suppose technically it’s a grail,” Talea allowed.
Kalindra turned in her seat. “Thaena’s Grail? You’re talking about Thaena’s Grail, aren’t you?”
Talea tilted her head. “Yes? I mean…” She paused to consider Kalindra again.
Kalindra was an angel of Thaena. Kalindra knew Thaena was dead.
“Yes,” Talea said, “I’m talking about Thaena’s Grail.”
“Huh.” Kalindra’s mouth twisted. “As it happens, I do know where that is, but there’s no way to recover it. I didn’t think … I was never really sure what the cup did. If anything. She always made it sound like—”
“I believe the cup would supersede Grimward’s control,” Talea said truthfully. “If we can get Xivan to take it.” And if it liked her. If Xivan and the cup resonated.
“So where is it?” Galen asked.
“Oh, well, you know how it is,” Kalindra said with entirely false humor. “It’s a small world. Last I knew—and I see no reason why this would have changed—it was in the lair of the shadow dragon Drehemia.”
Talea rubbed a thumb into her temple. “I’m really starting to hate dragons.”
“What if I could find out where Drehemia’s lair is?” Qown asked quietly.
As soon as he asked the question, Talea knew exactly what he was suggesting. Contacting Senera. Asking the Name of All Things. She wasn’t entirely certain it would work on the cup, but then again, why wouldn’t it? It worked on the Eight Immortals themselves. The only reason it had never been used on the cup was because Relos Var hadn’t known to ask.
Thaena must have thought giving the cup to the dragon of secrets to be delightfully appropriate.
“It’s a dragon,” Galen said. “We don’t have a way of dealing with a dragon.”
“We might not have to,” Sheloran said. “If the Lash is right and Drehemia is out rampaging, then she’s not in her lair. Why couldn’t we sneak in, steal a single cup, and walk right back out? We wouldn’t confront Drehemia at all.”
“Qown could check,” Talea said. “Once we know the location, he could make sure she’s not at home.”
“Huh.” Galen crossed his arms over his chest, looking thoughtful. “That could work. Just possibly. And you think this cup will really make a difference?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sheloran said. “We have no way to make Xivan take the cup, and even if we did, no way to reach Devors first. The Lash is almost certainly already on her way. And we’re sitting here in an inn in pirate land, where, I must remind you, we don’t own a ship.”
Talea felt herself deflate. It was still possible, but it would mean asking Senera for not only a favor involving the Name of All Things but also transportation. That latter one was far more likely to have her asking inconvenient questions about what they were doing. Questions Talea didn’t want to answer.
“I know a quick way back to Zherias,” Kalindra said. “From there, it’s a short stretch to cross the Galla Sea to Devors. We shouldn’t take our time, but depending on where Drehemia’s lair is, we’d be able to make it there days before the Lash.” She paused. “Drehemia’s lair is almost certainly near here.”
“What makes you say that?” Sheloran inquired.
“Because…” She paused and seemed to be considering her words. “The Lash lairs near here. That’s where the cup was last seen, and the ship it was on was attacked at sea. Drehemia wouldn’t be attacking ships at random. She’d be attacking ships that were convenient. And if her girlfriend is the Lash, well, I think we can assume she’s normally close by.”
“I bet someone in Ithlakor knows exactly where Drehemia lairs,” Sheloran said.
Galen stared at her. “The dragon of secrets and shadows? You’re sure about that?”
Sheloran’s face twisted. “Oh. Never mind.”
“But your logic was good up until that point,” Qown said. “She probably does live close to the Lash, and I’m sure her hunting grounds are convenient. It’s just that she could probably be living directly under this city and nobody would realize it. It’s a trait she shares with Gorokai.”
“Which one’s Gorokai?” Galen asked.
“The dragon who destroyed the Temple of Light.” Qown’s expression was stricken.
“Oh. That Gorokai.”
“So Senera, then?” Talea said.
Qown nodded. “Yes, this may take longer. She can be difficult to track down, but I’ll see what I can do.”
It did take longer. Nearly four hours. During which time, everyone was antsy and increasingly discomforted by the loud sex noises that migrated through the walls from their neighbors.
“Are we going to sleep here?” Qown looked at the room like he was in danger of melting if he touched the wrong surface.
Galen picked up an enormous pillow and shrugged. “Don’t fool yourself. A regular hospitality room wouldn’t be any cleaner.”
“Hmm.” Qown wrinkled his nose.
“Why don’t we order dinner while we wait,” Sheloran suggested. “None of us had the opportunity to eat at that lovely establishment we were forced to leave so dramatically.”
“I think I’m beginning to understand why Qown lost so much weight,” Talea murmured, looking at the man. He looked better than the last time Talea had seen him—the hair was a good look for him—but she remembered when he’d first arrived in Yor. He’d been all shyness and baby fat, and then she’d watched the hope drain from his eyes even as the pounds had melted from his body. It hadn’t been healthy, and she’d been tempted to lay all the blame on the food, but now she began to suspect a different reason: self-inflicted starvation. He’d probably just grown accustomed to the idea of going without.
Everyone else was enjoying a positively opulent spread of food, but Qown was too busy using Worldhearth. Qown still crouched down on the embroidered pillow by one of the long sofas, curled up around the stone in his lap the way one might around a good book. If it took much longer—and there was no reason to think it wouldn’t—then the meal would be over long before he was finished.
Galen frowned. “Lost weight?”
Talea shrugged. “When he was trapped in Yor.” Her expression turned morose. “He wasn’t eating. Yor isn’t a great place to be stuck if you don’t eat meat.”
Galen sent down to the kitchen for a dish of pastry-wrapped vegetable pies, which seemed like they would probably survive the wait.
After some time, Qown woke and blinked wearily. He looked around the room as if he’d forgotten where they were, forgotten what they were doing. He looked exhausted.
Galen picked up the pies and brought them over to Qown. “Eat one, then tell us what you found out.”
Qown’s expression lit up. “Oh? Oh, thank you. I’m famished.” His fingers paused as he was about to touch one of the pies. “But what is—?”
“Some kind of spinach, I think,” Galen said. “Not spicy enough, though.”
Qown glared. “You think it’s not spicy enough unless it will melt your teeth.”
Galen shrugged. “Guilty.”
Sheloran bapped both men on the head with her closed fan. “Enough of that. What did you find out?”
Qown cleared his throat. “Ah, well, it’s like Kalindra suspected. Drehemia does have her lair near here, and Thaena’s Grail is there.”5 He took a delicate, exploratory nibble on the pastry before deciding it was acceptable and biting off a larger piece. “But it’s at the bottom of the ocean. Now I happen to know a glyph—uh, I mean a spell—that’s fantastic for breathing underwater, but it’s terrible for actually, you know, seeing underwater. It would be extremely difficult to navigate. Imagine trying to see to the bottom of a lake from the outside. That’s—that’s what it’s like.”
“That won’t be an issue.” Kalindra sat to the side, managing to convey a sense of isolation.
“It won’t?” Galen cocked his head.
Kalindra’s wry smile suggested she just might possibly have been enjoying herself. “There’s an Ithlané temple here in town. That means we can work something out.”
Kalindra took them to the docks, a rambling, multilevel structure that looked like exactly what it had probably been: an improvised collection of independent buildings lashed together with compromise, magic, and good intentions. Eyes lingered on them as they walked, focused on the hundreds of telltale clues that betrayed their outsider status. They didn’t belong, and these people knew it.
The night air smelled of salt and fresh ozone. To Talea’s pleased surprise, it smelled not at all of dead fish and offal. Kalindra was the only one of them who clearly knew where she was going and what she was doing. Talea found herself wondering what the woman planned to do now. Did the Black Brotherhood even still exist? Or would it become a secular organization, exactly what they had pretended to be on the surface—assassins for hire?6
“Here’s how it will go,” Kalindra explained to the rest of them. “The priestess will ask for a donation. It will be expensive. Pay it, anyway. We’re going to ask her to give us the blessing of the sea daughters—”
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to ask her to turn us into kraken,” Galen said.
Kalindra glared. “Would you rather we didn’t do this?”
Galen stopped talking.
“As I was saying,” Kalindra continued, “be reverent and respectful. I should warn you that she will ask us to disrobe. That’s perfectly normal. Anyone who has a problem with nudity should wait at the temple door.”
It was almost comical how many of them turned and looked at Qown. He didn’t seem to find it nearly as amusing. “I’ll be fine.”
“They will put the possessions we leave behind in a chest. Don’t take anything you don’t mind dunking under water for several hours. Conversely, take everything with you that you reasonably can. I’ve never personally heard of anyone robbing one of the priestesses, but that doesn’t mean it never has nor never will happen.” Kalindra continued on then, not waiting to see if anyone declared that they were staying behind. Likely she assumed the truth: that everyone was committed.
Eventually, Kalindra stopped at the end of a pier, then motioned for the rest of them to continue following her as she ducked down a ladder. Talea would’ve never noticed it.
At the base of the ladder, a small wooden platform floated just above the waves, so cramped that Talea had to stoop. She could only imagine how uncomfortable Galen found the experience. Ropes secured an altar to the end of the platform, although it might be more accurate to say that it hung down from the timbers of the pier above. The altar consisted of offering bowls, a statue of a woman who was half fish, and various artistically draped fishing nets and corals. The woman tending the altar was ancient, her skin a pale, chalky gray, her eyes silver with no whites at all.
The old priestess picked up an offering bowl and thrust it in their direction.
Galen took the coin pouch that Captain Rima had given him, weighed it in his hand for a moment, and then placed it into the bowl. One by one, everyone else did the same.
“We would like a blessing of the sea daughters, please,” Galen said carefully.
She squinted at him, then seemed about to turn around.
Kalindra said something.
The woman paused and turned back.
“What did you just say?” Sheloran asked.
“I said we would like a blessing of the sea daughters,” Kalindra said. “Evidently, the priestess on duty tonight doesn’t speak Guarem.”
The woman sniffed. Her nose wasn’t just small, it was nearly absent—more like a protrusion with nostrils than an actual nose. The priestess said something unintelligible.
Kalindra answered, clasped her hands in front of her stomach, and bowed. Talea didn’t need to understand the language to guess that Kalindra was probably placating the woman about performing services for outsiders.
“Bah! Not one of them knows the sea,” the old woman growled.
Talea bit her lip and looked around. Nobody else gave any sign that they’d suddenly begun comprehending the old woman’s words. And it wasn’t like the priestess had suddenly begun speaking Guarem. Rather, Talea had suddenly started understanding Ithlané. Across the platform, she saw Eshi standing there very still, watching.
Eshi put a finger to her lips to indicate silence.
“Our intentions are good,” Kalindra assured, “and our need great.”
The old woman huffed, then began opening the bags. Her eyes widened at the quantity of metal contained inside. “I admit this is … respectful.” She closed off each bag and set them carefully in front of the altar. “Fine. Tell them to disrobe.”
Talea ignored the instruction until Kalindra translated. For Talea’s part, undressing happened without much fuss or interest. She hadn’t found nudity embarrassing for years. She doubted it was anything the others hadn’t seen. Including Qown.
The old woman motioned. Kalindra indicated they should each stand next to the edge of the platform, the sea at their backs.
“Don’t surface again until the spell ends,” the old woman warned. “You’ll choke to death on air. And it won’t last more than four hours, so don’t be caught on the bottom when it ends or you’ll die for sure. Understand?”
Kalindra translated this, basically as spoken.
The old woman began to pray and mumble something under her breath, making passes with her hands in the air that lingered, ghost images trailing behind her movements.
Then she knocked Galen on the head with the flat of her hand and pushed him back into the water.
“This is normal!” Kalindra shouted a quick assurance.
The priestess knocked back Sheloran next, then Qown, finally Talea, and then, presumably, Kalindra.
Admittedly, Talea was a little too distracted to pay much attention by that point. Her first sensation was, predictably, wetness.
Her second sensation was pain.
Her legs itched, and then that itching turned into a screaming, piercing horror of agony. She screamed, unable to stop herself, and choked as she found herself breathing in water instead of air. Everything about the experience told her to get out, to escape, to struggle to stay afloat.
“Stop fighting it,” Eshi commanded in a tone quite at odds with the little-girl voice delivering it.
Talea held on to her sword with all her might. She probably had tears streaming down her face, but since she was underwater, she couldn’t really tell. Everything hurt.
Until, quite suddenly, everything didn’t.
She jerked and ended up doing a movement more like a shimmy than a scissor kick as she tried to move her legs. Talea looked down and realized that moving her legs was impossible.
She no longer had legs.
A long, iridescent fish’s tail now flowed from her hips to past where her feet should have been. And she was breathing perfectly well, although she had no idea how. She also saw clearer in the dark water than she’d ever been able to on land.
She laughed. Notably, this didn’t have the normal effect of drowning her. Everyone else had a fish tail too, the same as she.
“Well, this is weird,” Galen said. “Pretty sure I’ve never been a fish before.”
“You’re only half-fish,” Sheloran assured him.
The language was odd. While Talea thought that she normally wouldn’t have been able to understand it (at least not any more than she could understand anyone speaking underwater), everyone’s speech was perfectly intelligible.
“You know which way to go?” Kalindra questioned Qown.
“West,” Qown said, “but I’m not sure which way is west.”
“Follow the cold current,” Kalindra said. “It comes from the west.” She pointed. “That way.”
“Right.” Qown nodded. “Then we need to go that way. We’re looking for an underwater mountain. It shouldn’t be more than a few miles from here.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Galen said.
Talea was more familiar with dragons than most people, for whom the very idea of a dragon was a god-king tale to be dismissed as the province of children. She knew better. She hoped Qown was right about Drehemia being away from her cave. It wasn’t a mistake they were likely to survive.
Talea had seen five dragons in her life: Aeyan’arric, Baelosh, Sharanakal, Relos Var (in dragon form), and Thaena (in Talea’s opinion, she counted, even if she wasn’t a dragon in the same way as the others).7 The closest Talea had ever come to dying was at the hands of the dragon Baelosh. She had great respect for the power of dragons.
She had no desire to meet a sixth.
Talea pulled short, arms moving in circles as she kept her place in the ocean water. In the distance, fish and larger animals—dolphins, turtles—went about their lives. And although she would have assumed she wouldn’t have a sense of smell, in fact, her olfactory senses seemed to be her most acute. For example, she could tell in which direction she needed to swim if she wanted to find where people had gathered or had dumped their waste into the sea. She knew where to find blood.
“I checked,” Qown said, “and Drehemia is miles away right now, attacking a city in Zherias. She’s rampaging, just as the Lash claimed. So in theory, there’s no one to stop us.”
“In theory,” Galen repeated.
“The theory being she lives alone?” Talea asked.
Galen nodded. “Pretty much, yes. Let’s hope that’s true. And that Taja likes us.”
“As much as she likes anyone,” Talea said mournfully, but she rather doubted that Galen caught the subtext. She thought the odds were in their favor, though: easily an 87 percent chance that Drehemia wouldn’t catch them in her lair. If they hurried.
“We need to move,” Talea announced and started forward without waiting to see if anyone was following.
Being a mermaid was remarkably fun once one got used to it. It took a while. The swimming was tricky—she kept trying to move her legs separately. But after she got used to the right motions, she found it remarkably easy to swim for hours—which was convenient, because she was reasonably sure that would be required by the time they’d finished.
Eventually, after what seemed like a much larger distance than “just a few miles,” they found the lone mountain in the middle of the sea, an island that just hadn’t quite managed to grow tall enough to break the surface of the ocean.
“There’s a cave opening, like a gash,” Qown said, “but I’m having trouble seeing inside.”
Which was true. They were so far down it was nearly dark. The creatures that swam there were either very small and brought their own lights with them, or very large and didn’t seem to need them.
Talea had a feeling there was probably more than one Daughter of Laaka hiding in these depths.
“I see it,” Galen said. “Everyone link hands. I’ll lead us there.”
He pulled everyone to a cave mouth, pitch-black, almost invisible in the already dark area, and swam inside. It was still far too dark for Talea to see.
The cave itself was as underwater as anything else, but it managed to be even murkier than the water outside.
“Wow,” Galen said.
“Wow?” Talea said. “What does ‘wow’ mean?”
“I’d create a light,” Qown said, “but I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“It should be safe enough,” Sheloran reassured him. “If she comes back early, she’ll spot us regardless of the light levels.”
“Good point.”
Qown created a light, and as soon as he did, Talea gasped. She was standing front of the wealth of an empire.
Every kind of metal and gemstone was before her, just heaped about like piles of rubbish that someone had forgotten to tidy before company arrived. It was the kind of dragon’s hoard the stories always described but that Talea had yet to see.
Except …
A section of the floor had been smoothed out, polished, and inlaid to form a checkerboard of squares. Next to this area, a number of boxes shaped like coffins lined the walls of the cave. Unlike the rest of the cave, this area had been kept immaculately, scrupulously clean.
“I spotted those earlier,” Qown whispered. “The tenyé signatures … there are people trapped inside those coffins.” He started swimming in that direction.
Kalindra grabbed his arm. “Hold on there. You don’t know what will happen if you free them. You don’t know if they can breathe down here. You don’t know what’s keeping them alive. And most importantly: this isn’t why we’re here.”
“They’re people.” It was clearly all the reasoning that Qown needed, and Talea couldn’t even say that he was wrong. Unfortunately, Kalindra wasn’t wrong either. “We can’t just leave them. What is she even doing with—”
Galen swam over and took Qown’s hand, who immediately stopped talking and stared at Galen, wide-eyed.
“We’ll come back,” Galen promised. “You have my word. We will come back.”
Qown swallowed, his throat moving visibly. He nodded.
Talea studied the magically enchanted game board, life-size, and then at the boxes lining the walls. A lifetime of catering to the desires of horrifying, sadistic royals had left her with an innate understanding of such whims. So she felt confident in her assessment of the boxes’ purpose. They protected and preserved Drehemia’s game pieces. It’s just that her game pieces happened to also be people.
Talea fought down the taste of bile. She clenched and opened her hands several times, fighting the desire to open every box. Even if it killed the people inside, that would be a kindness by comparison to this … and if Drehemia was truly gone off attacking cities …
Talea said, “When you do, please let me know. I’ll help you deal with her.” She didn’t look over to the side, not that anyone else could see Eshi. “What’s her matching Cornerstone?”
Galen frowned. “I don’t know what you mean…?”
“The Name of All Things,” Eshi and Qown both answered together.
Talea flinched. She’d never convince Senera to give that up in a million years, but it was the only way to kill Drehemia. They’d have to destroy the Name of All Things and Drehemia simultaneously.
So they wouldn’t be killing Drehemia. Fine. That didn’t mean they couldn’t still come back there and take away her toys.
Galen didn’t let go of Qown’s hand. “So how do we find this cup?”
“Easily,” Qown said. “Just have to look past the First Veil. It’s been touched by tenyé from one of the Eight Immortals, so it shines out like a light.” He briefly closed his eyes, concentrating, and then gazed at the far side of the room.
Nothing unusual about that except for when his vision crossed Talea’s path, and he visibly flinched. He spent a few moments staring at her with a dropped jaw, his expression unnerved.
Talea pressed her lips together and didn’t look at him. She was quite sure her tenyé didn’t look the same anymore. But what of it? Everything changed.8
“There.” Qown pointed into a corner. “It’s behind that pile of coins.”
Talea nodded. She saw it too, crammed under a heap of metal carelessly tossed to the side, unimportant and unvalued. Talea could tell right away that the cup was nothing like a normal cup. It was a solid knot of tenyé potential.
It occurred to her as she picked the thing up that she’d never looked at the coin from the other side of the First Veil. Would it have looked the same?
Did she look the same?
Sheloran gazed at the piles and piles of precious metals speculatively.
“I wouldn’t,” Qown advised.
“Maybe just a small pile of priceless treasures?” Sheloran queried.
“Do you want to take the chance the dragon has memorized every single item in her hoard?” Talea asked with a bright smile. She carefully pushed the coins away and felt around until her fingers touched where the ghostly tenyé glow told her the cup would be. She tugged it free.
The cup itself was an ugly little thing carved from something that looked like bone, glazed with a dark red polish around the rim. It looked like the misshapen clay had been thrown by someone still learning the craft. She clasped it to herself and wouldn’t let anyone else touch it.
Fortunately, no one else tried.
“Right,” Galen said. “Let’s go.”