Richard Byers: Queen of the Depths

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?”