Richard Byers: Queen of the Depths

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.