<u>6</u>


    Four slow-twirling bodies fell through the water like leaves, one of them trailing a plume of dark blood. Predators were already gathering. Sharks, reavers and worse.


    Gildyr reacted the best way he knew how. Summoning magic, the druid changed forms. With a sudden explosion of light, he turned into a monstrous kraken; a beaked horror covered in glaring eyes and lashing tentacles, big and heavy enough to crack that magical staircase nearly in half.


    Manna flared like sheet lightning from broken stone. The kraken’s tentacles seized everyone choking-tight, from Valerian and the drifting victims right down to a sodden gold monkey. The monster ballooned, bursting up out of the ocean and into the dryness above. Bloody ACwater sluiced from its barnacle-crusted flanks. Great, swollen floats shone at the ends of its whipping long tentacles.


    With a ringing metallic scream, the kraken waved its “captives”; beaked mouth gaping, dripping with poisonous slime. Great waves crashed away from the monster, pushing boats and ships onto shore, flooding the waterfront, shattering docks. The noise was a thunderous clamor of roaring water, splintering wood and wild screams.


    Then High Lord Arvendahl shot into the air, glowing with power, firing lightning with both outstretched hands. At his sigil and word, a shield formed between city and ocean, leaving him alone to face that raging monstrosity. Or <u>almost</u> alone.


    (Gildyr had been healing with magic and dryad buds, speaking through tendrils of watery slime, concocting a plan.)


    The kraken shrieked in sudden agony as one of its captives (a raven-haired elf) drew a sword, slicing the tentacle holding him. Leaking algae and gore, the kraken flung its tormentor away, almost directly at Arvendahl. Another young elf (this one a fiery mage) it swallowed whole; shoving the struggling prisoner into its gaping maw. Got half of its tongue burnt away in the process, raising great billows of acid steam. All of the kraken’s eyes seemed to bulge from its rubbery hide as it dove back into that churning water, pulling the rest of its victims down to a cold, crushing death.


    XXXXXXXXXXXX


    Down and down Gildyr plunged, still in the form of a slashed and scorched kraken, seeking an undamaged section of stairway. Found it, on a great, pillared landing by the continent’s edge. Wisely spat Valerian out before converting back to himself, missing two fingers and part of his tongue, scored with electrical burns.


    Up above, in the air, they’d got back their land-bodies. Here in the sea, they were once more transformed. Alive, though, and mostly whole. Better yet, thought to be horribly dead.


    Val placed a hand on Gildyr’s shoulder, murmuring, “Feel better,” with vocal cords strengthened for use underwater. Manna flared, repairing the druid’s shorn fingers and burnt away tongue. Valerian gave his quick-thinking friend an affectionate shake, then went to his aunt and the paladins. Had time for no more than a swift embrace… a quick introduction to Vorbol and Nadia… before hordes of sea-elves rose up to surround them. Armed, angry sea-elves, breathing threats and murder through mouthparts and gills.


    The weary party did not resist their arrest. How could they? As, up above, Lord Arvendahl welcomed Filimar back like a son, the lot on the stairs signed ‘Peace’. Didn’t get any.


    “An excuse, dry-lander,” snarled the sea-elves’ furious officer. “Give me any excuse to gut and filet you right here!”


    Her wish went unanswered, for the party had no more fight left, at all. Val, Gildyr, Salme and the rest suffered themselves to be bound up in dry-magic bubbles. These worked a treat… were actual torment… on sea creatures. Not so much, on a captive void-dweller.


    Linked with glowing filaments, the chain of transport bubbles was brought to the end of the staircase, where a mighty city of ten-thousand spires gleamed like a pearl. Behind it bubbled a massive, smoldering vent. Averna.


    The mortals had fallen asleep in their cell-bubbles, seeing no more of the city than a glow through their eyelids. The elves witnessed a glorious ocean metropolis with buildings constructed of coral and pearl, of lava-rock, shell and obsidian. Here there were no streets to speak of, while doors gaped in every direction.


    Shielded with magical force, guarded by giant crabs and octopods, the city gates streamed with traffic. There was no day and no night in Averna. Folk slept when they would, eating whenever they hungered (or when something tasty and small glided past).


    The captives were split up once the calvacade reached Averna’s Palace of Justice (A joke, that: it was smaller than Milardin’s.) Neira was soon taken away for questioning, the commoners locked in a cramped magic bubble. Kaazin was placed with a half-shark barbarian raider, while Val and his aunt found themselves facing the queen. Brought to a vast, crowded audience chamber by a unit of warriors, they were expected to answer for their fellows, being highest in rank.


    Shanella in person was lovely. Not so much sitting upon that throne of branched coral and gold as floating there. Val reflexively clothed himself in fine raiment. After a moment, Meliara did the same, changing from a simple white dress and brown cloak to the jewel-stitched gown of a high-born lady.


    As the eldest and closest in blood to Lord Tarandahl, it was for Meliara to speak for them both. She took and squeezed Valerian’s hand once, then bowed to Shanella. The sea-queen’s magic altered the chamber around them, making dense water seem no more than dank, rippling air.


    “Well,” she began, unsmiling. “I assume that you have some excuse for this clamor, as well as the damage you’ve caused to the Giant’s Path. Setting aside all the mischief done to Milardin… which I find most gratifying… the accusations against you are many and steep. What is your answer, voidlings?”


    Meliara inclined her head, saying,


    “Your Highness, this son of my brother was threatened by Lord Arvendahl for reasons unknown. In… perhaps questionable… retaliation, my nephew put flame to his lordship’s waterside corpse farm.”


    Shanella nodded once. So far, what the elf-maiden said matched Neira’s responses completely.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    “So I have learned,” said the tall, dark-haired queen. “No loss at all, except to the scavenging seabirds. But, why seek shelter here, risking the possibility of war between Arvendahl’s people and mine? The situation between us is already tense. Open defiance, should the air-lord demand your return, would certainly spark confrontation.”


    A ringlet of soft golden hair had escaped Meliara’s jeweled fillet. She tucked it behind one ear, saying,


    “We had little choice, Highness. For the son of my brother, lingering in Milardin would have brought death. As for myself and the warrior-priests… Lord Arvendahl himself dropped us into your realm. Thanks to the druid… a friend and companion of my nephew… we are healed, and Arvendahl probably thinks us all dead.”


    Again, Shanella nodded. At her signal and soft, keening wail, all of the guards and attendants streamed from the audience chamber. Within moments, there was nobody left but Shanella, Mellie and Val.


    Next the queen rose from her throne, languid and graceful, dark-eyed and pale as a corpse. Control of the currents was in her power, allowing Shanella to cross to where Meliara and Valerian hovered. Out of reach and slightly above them, the monarch said,


    “You are Tarandahls, and the matter of the betrothal lies between us, as well.”


    Valerian glanced at his aunt, who had fled Starloft rather than marry a sea-elf prince. His aunt’s jaw tightened, and her blue eyes narrowed. But,


    “Musty writs cannot bind the heart, Your Highness, nor do they order love,” she replied. Pretty evenly, all things considered. Shanella’s expression darkened.


    “Speak not of love, Tarandahl. As well nurse a shark or a moray as take in that crippling venom.” Then, gesturing upward, “Come. I would show you my son and tell you a story of love.”


    Meliara and Val followed the queen as she rose from the audience chamber. They’d crossed maybe a mile of that opulent palace when Shanella broke silence, remarking,


    “You are of royal blood, both of you.”


    It was Val who responded, for his aunt found the topic embarrassing.


    “Permission to speak, Highness?” he asked.


    The queen cast a look over one shoulder, still gliding along just ahead of them.


    “Granted,” she said. Valerian nodded, marshalling thought, ordering words.


    “Ilirian is a well-known dumping-ground for unwanted Imperial cast-offs; exiles, rebels and other embarrassments too important to kill, but too dangerous to simply imprison. Our blood may be royal… but only in the vaguest, most broad-minded sense, Your Highness.”


    “Nevertheless, the Valinor bloodline is there, along with the ichor of undying gods.”


    Goddess, rather. She-of-the-Flowers, said to be the mother of Lady Alyanara.


    “Highness, that is rumor,” Val objected. “My grandmother was a child of the Temple, one of Lord Oberyn’s handmaids.”


    “And thrice-blessed because of it,” said Shanella, pausing at last before a warded, arched door. There had been guards present. A trio of were-sharks. Sensing the queen''s approach, these had left, sending ripples and scent, along with a sort of electrical mist through the water. Shanella ignored all of that, facing Meliara and Val.


    “My son Zaresh resides in this room,” she told them. “What I show you now will secure release or a life of eternal captivity, for you and all your retainers. Guard well your thoughts and your speech, dry-landers.”


    What could they say? This was Shanella’s realm, into which they had come, uninvited, after refusing to honor an ages-old treaty. It was Aunt Meliara who answered this time, pleading,


    “I am of highest rank, answerable for all of the others. Let your judgment fall only on me, Your Highness. Are we not cousins?”


    Shanella hesitated. Then,


    “I make you no promise, Princess of Air,” she replied, spelling open that great mithral door. They passed within moments later, seeing a padded, spherical chamber with, well…


    “Go,” snapped the queen to the inmate’s attendants and nurses. Bowing, the merfolk, elves and octopods left.


    Shanella signaled her visitors further inside, shutting the door. Next, she inscribed cone of silence, guaranteeing their privacy. Val and his aunt barely noticed.


    Prince Zaresh hovered in mid-chamber, moving this way and that, seeming to talk and react to persons unseen. He spoke gibberish, laughing lightly at some hidden joke. A good-looking young fellow with drifting dark hair and black eyes, he was magically bound to the sick-room’s padded walls. The bonds were there to prevent him from hurting himself through collision or sudden movement. Necessary, because his body was present, but his conscious mind was almost entirely elsewhere.


    “See the result of love and its price,” growled Shanella, her face a cold mask. “I will tell you the tale, and you shall decide for yourselves how much of our treaty to honor.”


    She began her story without looking at Meliara or Val, her gaze instead locked on her son’s shifting face and vague eyes.


    “Know, wanderers, that I am not a full Kalistiel. My family was a cadet branch with ambitions to power. Through marriage, intrigue and poison, my ancestors arranged to depose the last true Kalistiel queen, placing my mother on the throne in her stead. Mother was cursed in so doing and died of that curse shortly afterward, leaving me as her heir, still unwed. My family arranged a match with the young heir of another great house. The union was a fortunate one. We took to each other at once, Samyr and I. He was handsome, strong, full of laughter and courage… things that will win a young girl’s foolish heart. Blessed yet again, in due time I became pregnant. Samyr was overjoyed and I, as well. Our child would sit secure on the throne of Averna, for… with such early quickening… how could anyone doubt the will of the gods?”


    Zaresh burst into hearty conversation, seeming to clasp someone’s hand. In words that made no sense at all, the sea-prince teased someone nobody present could see. Shanella’s gills flared. After waiting a bit for her son to grow quiet, she continued her tale.


    “I was close to delivery when my lord Samyr was invited out on a hunt. I could have forbidden it, but… but I loved him well and valued his happiness. I merely asked for a coral-bloom, as a love-token upon his return. It was on the way back that the curse struck his party, in the form of a deep-reaver. Perhaps my lord Samyr would have sensed its coming, had he not stopped for a bit of coral.”


    Her hand went up to a delicate strand of red beads set in gold. It hung at her throat, seeming much-rubbed and never removed.


    “The reaver struck hard, its razor fins tearing the hunters to bits, its jaws biting Samyr in half. I saw this from the parade arch, where I awaited his coming. Tried… used magic when I should not have, trying to shield my love. So very much magic, so fast, that it destroyed our child. Of the rest, I have small recollection. I was certainly brought back inside and tended by healers. My life, they could save. Not Samyr’s. Not his men, not… not the little one’s.”


    She sighed, reaching a hand toward Zaresh, who noticed nothing at all.


    “I was a fool. A powerful, sorrowing, fool. I thought to call back the child, using dark magic. The result, as you see, was half a return. His body is here. It lives, grows, ages and eats. His soul wanders elsewhere.”


    Now, still rigidly composed, Shanella turned to face Meliara and Val.


    “It is a most insidious curse,” she told them. “The old queen’s last-magic. It has left me widowed and robbed of an heir, ‘cousin’. So much for ambition and love. There are those who would take the throne from me… adherents of the old royal family. So… that is the way of it. I will not ask that you wed Zaresh. I am a sovereign monarch. I ask nothing at all.”


    Not even a three-night, it seemed. Silently, the bereaved queen dropped her privacy spell and then summoned the prince’s attendants. They swarmed in once again, ready to watch and guard their addled young lord.


    Shanella then led her noble captives out of the room. Up the passage they went and out to a shielded balcony. Overlooking the scorching-hot vent down below, it faced nothing at all but boiling gas and abyss.


    “They will depose me,” she said over conjured sting-nectar, almost conversationally. “With my lack of an heir… the curse, and the gods’ abandonment… my enemies have all the excuse that they need to strike me down and mingle my blood with that of my ancestors.”


    Meliara glanced over at Val, both of them thinking: ‘What now?’