Mel Odom - The sea devil's eye

"Provided your young hero survives," Qos said.

The merfolk lead us into a trap," Laaqueel said.

She stood beside Iakhovas on Tarjanas deck, watching as the mermen battled sahuagin and the few remaining drowned ones. Only a few koalinth remained among them after the ixitxachitls' attack during the assault on Naulys.

"Of course they do," Iakhovas said. "They seek to slow us and let Myth Nantar prepare to meet us."

Laaqueel had seen that the city had been opened through the images in the crystal brain coral. Iakhovas peered through the crystal almost incessantly. She'd had no contact with the female voice that spoke with her at the Battle of Voalidru. She also hadn't had to fight for her life since then.

And since that battle, she hadn't once prayed to Sekolah.

Then we're going to go into the trap?" Laaqueel asked.

Iakhovas smiled confidently. "I wouldn't miss it, little malenti."

"Are you afraid?" Sabyna asked.

Jherek cracked open a crab leg and dug out the tender meat inside. He sat with Sabyna on one of the benches on Maalirn's Walk near the Fire Fountain. The flames blazed up in spite of the water, and cooks used the heat to prepare meals for the humans who weren't used to eating uncooked seafood. They'd been in Myth Nantar now for five days.

"Aye," he told her without hesitation. "By all the stories I've been told of the Taker, by all the legends that Pacys has seen fit to tell me, he's a fearsome creature. I'd be a fool not to be afraid."

"You don't have to fight him."

Jherek was silent for a moment, then said, "Aye, but I do, lady. It's as Lathander would have me do, and there are those who believe I might be the only chance there is to end his menace for all time."

"You mean Pacys and Glawinn believe that."

"Aye."

"One wants to sing about you, Jherek, and the other believes in heroes."

"Do you find me so hard to believe in, lady?"

Sabyna shook her head, the anger in her features softening. "No," she admitted, "I believe in you, Jherek, but I'm afraid for you, too."

"It only shows you have good sense."

"How can you joke about this?"

"Lady, forgive me. I'm not joking. I just don't want to burden you-or myself."

"What if I asked you not to do this?" Sabyna asked. "What if I asked you not to stand and fight with these people?"

Jherek was silent for a moment, looking into her copper-colored eyes. "Would you?" he asked finally.

She looked away from him. "Selune help a misguided fool," she said, "I should never have brought this up."

"Would you ask me?" Jherek asked quietly. "Now I need to know."

"If I was going to ask you, I already would have," she told him. "I know what your answer would be anyway. It just seems so unfair that we have this between us and we stand on the brink of losing it all."

Jherek took her hand in his, squeezing it lightly. "Lady, I prefer to think that we stand on the brink of having more than I'd ever dreamed."

Tears glittered in her eyes, and he could tell she searched for something to say. "I'm sorry I even thought about asking you this, Jherek. It's a streak of selfishness in me that I'm not proud of."

"It's good to know the things you want."

She smiled through her tears. "I know I want you."

"As I want you, lady." He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them softly. "Neither of us knows what the future may bring, and I've had enough of living in the past. I will take what I can get."

"I know."

"As for fighting the Taker, I won't be going into that battle alone. Glawinn will be there, as well as a host of warriors who have spent their lives in battle."

"I don't know why it has to be you."

"Nor do I, lady. I only know that I won't walk away from this. All my life I've looked for something to believe in. Lathander is teaching me to believe in myself. No one caused me to be the way I am. I walk the path I do because I chose to walk it. I stayed with the people I did because I wanted to, not because I had to. Looking back as Lathander has bade me, I realize now that I had more choice in those matters than I thought I did. I stepped away from my father in search of becoming what was in me, not because of what I wanted but because I couldn't accept what was there. If I walked away from this, I couldn't accept myself. I wouldn't feel as though I deserved you."

"I wouldn't judge you harshly for walking away from this."

Jherek nodded. "I know."

"I love you."

Her hand trailed gently across his face, briefly touching the water-softened scab that covered the slash on his cheek.

"As I love you." Jherek touched her face with the back of his hand, wiping away the tears he found there. "I could not love you so much did I not love honor, lady. It is all I know to be, and I would die before I betrayed that honor or my love for you."

"I know," she said hoarsely, holding his head between her hands. "I know. One does not come without the price of the other. For either of us."

She pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around his waist. Jherek put his arms over her shoulders and held her tightly.

"Die, huu-mannn!"

Jherek lifted the cutlass and blocked the sea devil's trident thrust. He willed Iridea's Tear into a hook, reaching out quickly and tearing the throat from his opponent. He pushed the dying sahuagin away, almost bowled over by the next sea devil pushing up from behind.

The young paladin stood with other defenders of Myth Xantar at Chamal Gate. The Taker's final attack came after the triton offensive of the fifth of Uktar-only a couple days before-had split his forces. According to the tritons who'd reported to Qos, fully half his remaining army of sahuagin had turned and swam back to the Alamber Sea.

The sound of steel against coral filled the area, ringing more stridently than Jherek was used to. Over it all he heard Pacys singing. The bard's song rang true within him, making him feel stronger and more confident. Iakhovas's army still outnumbered the Myth Nantarn defenders nearly two to one, even after the tritons' victory.

Fighting undersea wasn't like fighting on a ship's deck, Jherek discovered. Underwater, the sahuagin could come at him from above as well as ahead and behind-and they didn't have any sense of honor. Nor did they abide by the Laws of Battle he'd heard so many of the Serosians lived and died by.

"Fall back and regroup!" Morgan Ildacer shouted, waving his troops back. The High Mages had named the sea elf captain to head up one of the defensive units.

The young paladin fell back with the rest of his group. He swam with the others, finding it easier to battle in the mythal that covered the city than he expected. His moves in the water came more naturally since he didn't have to hold his breath. Somehow his sense of balance seemed more sure as well.

A sahuagin thrust a spear at him from the right while another yanked its weapon from a mortally wounded sea elf.

Jherek swung the enchanted sword and chopped the trident head off, leaving the sahuagin with only the shaft in its hands. Once under water he'd found the sword swung as easily as if he stood on dry land, the blade not slowed at all.

The sahuagin seemed startled, then angrily threw the useless shaft away and spread the claws of both its hands. The second sahuagin approached in a flash, its fins pushing at the water.

Jherek willed the bracer into a two-foot shield and set himself as well as he could. He pulled the shield in against his body at the last minute. Like the sword, the bracer-in any shape he willed it into-had no water drag at all.

The trident slammed against the shield then deflected harmlessly over Jherek's shoulder. The sahuagin shoved a hand out with its finger webs spread to slow and turn. Jherek uncoiled his arm and lashed out with the shield. The razor-sharp edge, thinner and more solid than the finest steel, sliced through the sea devil's stomach, disemboweling it at once.