Under Fallen Stars

Before she could touch it, Iakhovas's voice rumbled, "Enter, little malenti."

She let herself through the door, having the brief but certain feeling that it would not have opened at all if he hadn't allowed it.

Iakhovas occupied a chair constructed of whalebone that was thronelike in its dimensions. Seaweed draped it, creating a cushion. Lucent algae hung in irregular strips across the ceiling. Shelves held some of the items his spies and troops had gathered since the attacks against the coastal lands had begun.

Laaqueel could sense the power that clung to most of them but didn't know what any of them were.

A crystal brain coral sat in the middle of the table, as tightly furrowed as its namesake. Though she was familiar with all the corals that formed along the Sword Coast, the malenti priestess had never seen anything like it. Motion slithered and twisted in the brain coral's depths.

Iakhovas sat back in the seat, his attention riveted on the crystal brain coral. Some of the glitter on the crystalline surface reflected through the patch covering his empty eye socket.

"What do you want?" he asked, sounding distracted.

"Only to see what it was that took up so much of your attention," she told him. "Our people need to see their king out among them more if they're going to follow him into areas not meant for We Who Eat."

Iakhovas fixed his single eye on her, but she felt something else-a cold and alien glare-settle on her from his missing eye.

"Not meant for We Who Eat?" He shook his head. "Little malenti, there are sahuagin in those waters, and we are on our way to set them free. Come. Let me show you." He gestured toward the brain coral.

Moving closer, Laaqueel stared into the brain coral's depths. Lights spun and glittered there. She knew it was an underwater location from the color around the figures revealed to her. No sky ever held that shade of blue, and no patch of land ever looked like the silt bed of the ocean floor.

One of the figures was an old surface dweller riding in front of a sea elf on a seahorse. They rode toward a city that had parts that looked as ancient as anything Laaqueel had ever seen. Even though she knew she shouldn't involve herself, the malenti priestess couldn't help asking, "Who's this?"

Iakhovas considered her question for a moment. "In all your studies about One Who Swims With Sekolah, did you ever hear the name Taleweaver?"

"No." She didn't remember reading the name, but something turned over in her memory.

"The sea elves have legends about me too," Iakhovas said. "All marine creatures that had a means of recording history when I was last in these waters had stories of me." He laughed, and the sound echoed within the cabin. "All of them are lies. Lies built on misconceptions and prejudiced hatred. Some of them I even started myself through various agents."

"This man is the Taleweaver?" Laaqueel asked.

"Yes," Iakhovas admitted.

Laaqueel sca

"In the little drama the sea elves are trying to establish?" Iakhovas asked. "He is supposed to find their savior."

"Their savior?" Laaqueel felt a little uneasy talking of saviors. Her own beliefs were strong, and she knew that other religions, other gods, exercised considerable power across Faerun as well.

"Someone who will stand against me and defeat me," Iakhovas explained. "You know how these legends are. Humans and elves all believe in these great romances of men and elves that are able to triumph against great and overwhelming odds."

"Is it true?"

"Their myth of the savior?"

For a moment, Laaqueel hesitated putting voice to her reply because she didn't know how Iakhovas would react. "Yes."

Iakhovas shook his head and laughed again. "Little malenti, I helped create the myth of their savior. There is no savior. Any human they find who believes he is this one is only a fool one heartbeat away from death."

"Why did you do that?"

Iakhovas raked a talon against the crystal brain coral, causing a tiny, high-pitched ring and said, "Because I could. Because it amused me. Most of all, because it served me. If they didn't have the legend of their hero, they wouldn't do the things I need them to that will insure my success."

"What do you need from them?"

He raked her with his harsh gaze. "You know more than any other at this time, little malenti. Don't get any greedier than I can tolerate."

Laaqueel felt a surge of anger thrill through her. Only days ago he'd helped her rebuild her faith, now he was pushing her at arm's length again.

"At ease," Iakhovas told her. "I only want you to remember your boundaries for your own benefit. Not mine."

Carefully, Laaqueel pushed water through her gills and dropped her eyes in deference to his authority. In many ways he was correct. She had her faith, and that would be enough. That strength would serve her as she served Sekolah.

"And to answer your question, the elves believe the Taleweaver will help them rebuild their histories and allow them some measure of a chance to defeat me once the savior is found. However, as the Taleweaver moves to the ripples they feed him, so does he serve the undercurrent I've had in play for thousands of years."

Listening carefully, Laaqueel filed the information away in her mind.

"There are, in the Sea of Fallen Stars-or Seros as they call it there-beings who are unlike any of those elsewhere in all of Toril. They can prove to be somewhat difficult to deal with. And if I-if we-do not move cleverly while we are there, the Sea of Fallen Stars can become a trap. I have no intention of allowing that to happen."

Laaqueel tried to listen to any sign of fear or anxiety in his voice, but there was none. Only the confidence he always exuded sounded in it.

"Now come, little malenti, and let me show you the brethren to We Who Eat that I've spoken of. They are there, and they are kept behind a wall that is meant to keep them from taking over all of Seros, as is their right."

"Sekolah would never allow such a thing," Laaqueel said. The idea of sahuagin pe

"The Great Shark will tolerate it no longer," Iakhovas said. "That's why you and I were brought together here and now. We will bring them their freedom, and the people of Seros will know what it means to have doom suckled to their breasts like a vampiric child."

Curious and a little afraid to find what he was saying was true, Laaqueel peered into the crystal brain coral.

The image of the sea elf and the old surface dweller astride the seahorse floating down into the ancient city faded from the crystal's depths. In seconds it was replaced with the image of a sahuagin hunting party armed with nets and tridents.

"They are different," Laaqueel breathed, surprise filling her and driving away her own fears and doubts. Their anterior fins radiated from the sides of their heads as did the ones in the outer seas, but they flowed longer, reaching back along the skull until they merged with the dorsal fin at the top of their shoulder blades. Also, their coloring tended more toward blue shades than green. In fact some of those Laaqueel saw were teal and turquoise colored. A great number of them had speckles and stripes, like the markings they had as hatchlings.

Iakhovas touched the brain coral and the image changed again. When it cleared once more, it showed a massive wall lying under a stretch of ocean, only a short distance from the surface. The wall looked smooth, obviously manmade and constructed with care. She knew how massive it was from comparing the fish and the hated sea elves swimming nearby.

"We Who Eat of Seros are held captive in a tiny portion of all that is available. The elves and surface dwellers call the area the Alamber Sea. None of the sahuagin trapped inside it have ever been allowed to leave that area in any great numbers. Only hunting groups in twos and threes have escaped through the sea elf guards that man the wall."