Anthtology - Realms of the Deep

"Close to death the father is, young one. To end his life Axar does not wish, but kill Axar will to gain the claw's power."

Other morkoths surrounded Keros while Xyrl spoke to him, and Xyrl manipulated the coils of his spell tentacle, allowing his minions to seize the claw. Keros struggled to hold the artifact, but with two morkoths pulling it loose and another choking him, Keros felt it tear from his grasp.

Keros felt defeated, but his rage continued to rise. He watched as the morkoths relayed the claw down to Axar Xyrl, who held a black, glowing tentacle over Moras's heart, which he moved to grasp the claw. Keros watched the arcount turn the mummified tentacle over and over, as if looking for something. He wondered why the claw no longer glowed green, as apparently did Xyrl, then he thought about the confusing green scales along his arms. Only after the morkoth screamed in frustration and gazed directly at him did Keros know the secret. The power of the Claw of Xynakt had moved into him.

His mind awhirl with the turmoil of events, Keros still meant to save his father, and he now had the means to do so. The triton summoned all his emotion and roared as he flexed his muscles, trying to slash his way out of the tentacle with the many-times-blessed tapal he still carried. The world went red in his eyes, and magic shattered in the face of his anger, the backlash separating three morkoths from their limbs and heads. Axar Xyrl shrank before this unexpected power, as Keros stepped free of his dissolving spell and advanced on the arcount. The tapal in his right hand now glistened with emerald energy, and he leveled it at the silver-beaked villain, his eyes devoid of any emotion save fury.

Visibly shaking with hostility in his defeat, Axar Xyrl said in a voice far more chilling for its calm, "Taken my prize, little triton has, or take you did it? Know the powers of the claw, Axar Xyrl does, and tell you I will not. Gains the little triton only sorrow and revenge everlasting, your victory does."

Swiftide reared up quickly behind the morkoths to attack and Keros rushed forward, but Axar completed a spell with a few quick gestures and disappeared in a swirl of water.

Keros screamed in protest, the frustration of losing his foe so easily boiling out of him with all of the fury that gripped him during the battle. His eyes tightly shut in his scream of rage, Keros didn't see the tapal glow the brightest green, but he noticed as the weight on his arm lightened. Opening his eyes, he watched as the blade shimmered and dissolved into nothingness. While shocked by that, he saw beyond himself to the wounded body of his father still pinned to the wall. Moras locked eyes with Keros, though not with the expected disapproval.

Keros swam over to his father, suddenly immensely grateful that he high priest still lived. He didn't notice that Swiftide floated apart from them. The hippocampus was silent for a moment, as if wondering who this person was who had raised him from a foal. Though his body was angry with scars and fresh wounds, Moras ignored them and looked at his son with new eyes.

"Of all the currents open for you, Keros," the priest said, "this one I never expected. I have awaited Per-sana's Blade for many tides, and I never expected it to be you, my son."

"What do you mean, Father?" Keros asked. "I did what you asked and kept the claw away from the morkoths. Now I just hope you know of some spells that can get this thing out of me and back into the ice."

Keros allowed his father to lean over his shoulders, and both men grunted as Keros pulled the trident loose from the wall. Keros carried Moras down to a level slab of rubble at the floor of the chamber, the trident still in him until they could find another healer to aid him.

"He must have passed out from the pain," Keros told himself. "That's why he isn't answering me." Settling his father as best he could, Keros looked at his face, to find him awake and looking at him with compassion.

Taking his son's right hand, Moras turned it palm up, and Keros gasped-a great green jewel now glinted at the center of his palm.

"The tapal will come to you when you need it-that it shall remain in the family's service is a good thing to know," Moras said. "The only magic that can separate it and the claw from you now, son, is that magic that awaits us all at currents' end. You carry this burden for the rest of your days, but you are strong enough to bear it. I have seen this, at least." Moras breathed in, and a hacking cough shook his body, blood clouding the water near his mouth and gill slits.

"Father!" Keros cried, his confusion turning to alarm as the older triton's wounds now seemed more serious with the rush of battle behind them. "Father…"

Moras stopped coughing and opened his eyes. "You are my son. A cold current lies before you, but do not shirk it. You know your duty to Pumanath, to Seros, to Persana. Protect and keep this power from anyone who would steal or abuse it. Do this, and know that we are proud-" Moras began to cough again, more blood flowing from his gills.

Keros was so focused on his father's last words he didn't hear the entrance of the triton military forces above him. Swiftide's sharp whinny warned him of an attack from behind and Keros brought his right arm up to block the stabbing tines of a trident, and gasped as it glanced off his arm, striking sparks where the metal trident grated on the tattooed scales. Both tritons gasped at that, but the attacker now redoubled her efforts.

Turning away from his fallen father, Keros saw eight more tritons all bearing down on him from all sides and above. These were tritons he had known his whole life, all looking at him as if they did not know him and as if he were their worst enemy.

"What's going on?" Keros pleaded. "Why are you attacking me?"

The only answer he got was a flurry of nets thrown over him. Swiftide came to his defense, knocking aside two tritons to rise under Keros and bear him and the fight away from the wounded high priest. Keros found himself seething with wrath over the loss of his mother, the near death of his father, the unexplained attack on him, and the confusion of his newfound power. He wanted to lash out at the tritons, and in response, his right arm glowed and the tapal appeared on his right arm, gleaming emerald bright. Slashing away the nets that surrounded him, Keros saw more tritons entering the Tower of Numos, and all of them reacted to him with fear and revulsion. As he rose through the water on Swiftide's back, he called to them, though his hopes of explanation were lost in a flurry of tridents and expletives. Despite the fury that seemed to rise uncontrollably in him now, Keros hardly wanted to fight his own people, regardless of why they attacked Mm. Settling onto Swiftide more readily, Keros turned his back on his attackers and swam off into the depths.

From the chamber floor, Moras called out weakly to the tritons above him. "Leave him for now. We have suffered grievously today, and we shall not slay our own, regardless of what magics now possess him."

Two centurions swam down to where Moras lay, hardly believing what their superior ordered them to do. As the centurions removed the trident from Moras's leg and torso, two minor priests administered some much needed healing magic, and the high priest regained consciousness.

"Keros?" Moras muttered. "Centurion Barys, did my boy make it away?"

Barys seemed puzzled, but answered, "Yes, your holiness. What happened here? What happened to him? We thought him another of those tathak."

Moras looked at the centurion in surprise. The harsh expletive was often used to refer to morkoths, but never within the temple grounds. The high priest eased himself to a sitting position with some aid, and he spoke loudly, his voice resonating in the water for all in the chamber to hear.