Paul Thompson - Dargonesti

Vixa and Armantaro exchanged an unhappy look. Coryphene gestured at the two of them, saying, “You shall remain. Naxos, have the other two taken to the grotto.”

More dolphins appeared in the pool, blowing and whistling. Armantaro had to shout to be heard. “Your Excellency! These are my retainers. I wish to keep them with me.”

“You have no need of retainers here. Come.”

The newly arrived dolphins began transforming just as Naxos had. Vixa watched in rapt wonder as, one by one, they became tall, yellow-eyed Dargonesti elves.

Armantaro, thinking it unwise to annoy their host, tugged at her elbow. He spoke briefly to Harmanutis and Vanthanoris, and the warriors reluctantly allowed themselves to be separated from their commander.

Vixa and Armantaro followed Coryphene. The entourage stood aside to let the Qualinesti pass. Up close, Vixa saw that these sea elves were more than mere officials or courtiers. Under their mauve cloaks they wore breastplates of green tortoise-shell. Short scabbards hung from their belts. Vixa thought longingly of her own treasured sword and took hold of Armantaro’s arm.

“Why do I feel less rescued than captured?” she whispered.

He gave her an encouraging smile, but couldn’t hide the worry in his own eyes.

Coryphene had donned a tall headdress made with dangling shells and gemstones. His guard closed in behind them. A wide stone staircase led upward through the pale pink ceiling of this level, emerging in a busy street. Hundreds of Dargonesti bustled about in what appeared to be a marketplace. Fish of a dozen varieties lay piled in gigantic seashells or baskets of woven seaweed. Vendors trundled two-wheeled barrows back and forth. The air was heavy with damp and the smell of the sea.

Everyone made way for Coryphene. The common folk, who wore gray leather vests over knee-length green or yellow kilts, bowed deeply as he passed. Striding through the respectful crowd, Coryphene looked neither left nor right. His escort was similarly sober. Once the Dargonesti lord had passed by, the sea elves turned their gazes upon Vixa and Armantaro. The looks the two received were less friendly.

“No one seems happy to see us,” Vixa remarked softly.

“No, they don’t. We’d get a warmer greeting in Silvanost, I’ll wager.”

“Speaking of warm-” Vixa tugged at her skimpy clothing.

Armantaro frowned. He lengthened his stride.

“Your Excellence,” he said, catching up to the Dargonesti lord. “My niece is cold. Could we borrow a cloak for her?”

Coryphene glanced back at Vixa, shrugged, and gestured to a passerby. In moments, Vixa was wrapped in a blue cloak made of some surprisingly soft material. Warmer now, the Qualinesti princess looked about her with more interest.

Another vaulted ceiling topped this market, with many light globes strung about. In some places, on pillars or bare stretches of wall, stone spouts protruded. Formed to resemble sea horses or squid, these spouts poured forth streams of water into stone basins. They seemed too numerous to be drinking fountains. The mystery was solved when Vixa saw a Dargonesti set aside the basket of fish he carried and duck his head into one of the streams. It was then she realized that below each ear, on the sides of his neck, the sea elf had a semicircle of lacy gill. She commented on this to Armantaro.

“I see,” he said, nodding. “They seem to breathe both water and air. Perhaps they must keep their gills wet when not in the water.”

As they neared the far edge of the market, Coryphene stopped. An elaborate open sedan chair, borne by four helmeted elves, arrived. The bearers lowered the chair to the floor, and Coryphene stepped in.

Vixa looked around for another conveyance. None appeared. “Looks as if we walk,” she said with a sigh. Her feet, bare and damp, felt like twin ice blocks. None of the Dargonesti were shod, so she’d probably have trouble securing new boots here.

At a shout, the bearers hoisted Coryphene’s chair to their shoulders. The Dargonesti formed a line on each side. He clapped his hands, and the bearers were off at a trot. The Qualinesti were obliged to jog just to keep up.

The Dargonesti guards drew swords and held them up as they ran. The lead soldier, ahead of Coryphene’s chair, began to chant in a very deep voice. The guards echoed his words. To Vixa it sounded like nonsensical singsong.

“Look at their swords,” Armantaro puffed.

Coryphene’s escort was armed with an assortment of edged weapons-Ergothian sabers, dwarven short swords, sailors’ cutlasses. It was clear that these were salvaged pieces, probably from shipwrecks. Why would this elite guard be armed with such a random mix of blades?

A lustrous marble path wound tightly around an enormous pink granite pillar, most likely the central support of the city’s outer shell. The grade was rather steep, but the long-legged sea elves maintained their exhausting pace with no sign of discomfort.

As they trotted around the broad sweep of the ramp, Vixa looked up. The central shaft reached all the way to the city’s apex. She swallowed hard and looked away from the sheer, dizzying height of it.

Round and round they went, passing every level in Urione. Some levels were air-filled and contained houses and shops. Others, walled off from the spiral ramp by panes of quartz, were open to the ocean. Dolphins coursed through the passages-or perhaps they were Dargonesti in dolphin form, for these animals wore necklaces of shells and gems. On other flooded levels were gardens of waving sea plants, schools of trout and tuna that surged from wall to wall with the restless energy of the wild sea, and pens teeming with crabs.

They passed a level with especially high ceilings. Roads, inlaid with alternating bands of black basalt and mother-of-pearl, radiated from the central ramp to a complex of wedge-shaped temples constructed in the finest style. Elaborate, brightly colored bas-reliefs on the buildings displayed a variety of sea life-octopi, starfish, sea horses, and fish of every shape and hue. An odd odor, similar to the sweet incense used in Qualinesti temples, yet strangely different, permeated this level of the city, leaving a sickening aftertaste. Then, as Coryphene’s sedan chair swung around the ramp ahead of them, Vixa and Armantaro beheld a sight that froze the blood in their veins.

In a plaza between two brilliant temples stood an enormous statue, easily thirty feet wide and about half as high. It portrayed a creature shaped like an upside down bowl, with myriad tentacles hanging from its underside. A vast mouth opened on the side of the thing, and two onyx eyes were buried in the dull white flesh above the mouth. This was horrible enough, but scattered across the broad back of the monster were tiny carved models of ships. They listed this way and that, their sails slack and useless. Stranded ships, just like Evenstar .

“Ma’el is put to bed,” the shapeshifter Naxos had said to Coryphene. And what had Captain Esquelamar told them when they were first trapped inside the sea monster? He’d spoken of the kraken, a creature so huge it could drag down a ship entwined in its tentacles.

Their pace faltered. Lines of Dargonesti warriors surged past.

In front of the grotesque statue was an altar of white coral. Several Dargonesti, clad in red and mauve robes that swept the floor, stood before the altar. In their hands they held seashell bowls. As each passed the statue, he poured liquid from his bowl onto the altar. The Qualinesti saw oil, sand, and a dark substance they feared was blood dribbled onto the flawless white coral.

Someone shoved them from behind. Vixa whirled, fists at the ready. Armantaro squared off as well.

“Move on!” barked one of the Dargonesti guards who had dropped back from the rest to ensure the Qualinesti kept up. “The Lord Protector awaits!”