around him.
A servant ran in and prostrated himself on the floor, careful not to look upon the divine face of his queen. “Gracious goddess!” he cried. “Lord Kios of the sea brothers begs for an immediate audience with Lord Protector Coryphene!”
His fury distracted, Coryphene released his death grip on Armantaro. The colonel dropped to the floor, racked with gasping coughs. Coryphene took two deep breaths. His gills flared out and relaxed again behind his ears.
“It is not fitting for you to see death, Divine One,” he said to Uriona. “I will take the drylander out and dispose of him.”
He gestured to the servant, who dragged the helpless Armantaro into the audience hall. Coryphene strode out after them.
“I have not given you leave to go,” Uriona said sharply.
He turned. “I did not ask it. I will hear Kios and dispose of the drylander. Then I shall return, Majesty.”
He walked out, proud and fierce. Alone in the chamber, Uriona smiled. It had taken a long time, but she had finally provoked Coryphene into asserting himself. If he was to be her consort, as she fervently wished, he’d better learn to speak up and stop playing the toady.
Vixa swam slowly along the bottom, probing the gloom around her. The Mortas Trench was hardly an inviting place at the best of times. In the aftermath of the climactic battle, it was hellish. Moray eels, sharks, and other carnivores prowled the dark recesses, feeding on dead chilkit drifting in the current. Strange how they lost their vivid crimson color after death. The chilkit bodies had turned pure white.
For two days Vixa had searched for Naxos in the unfamiliar environs around Urione. She had been encouraged by not finding his body, but her hope was giving way to despair. There were no clues at all. The gardens of kelp and coral were empty. No trace of the sea brothers’ former chief could be found near the shrimp pens, the quarry, or the shell heaps where the Dargonesti discarded all the shellfish debris from the city. That left only one other place to search: Mortas.
Vixa had learned that as a dolphin her hearing was her greatest strength. Swimming slowly along the floor of the trench, she heard a constant background of noises, but nothing that sounded like the wounded Naxos.
She called to him. There was no response. She called more loudly. The only answer was the susurration of water lapping against the excavations made by the chilkit.
She cruised over to a large opening in the mountainside. This must be the tunnel the chilkit had made to enter Nissia Grotto. Cautiously, she swam inside the black pit. Small creatures scurried away as she approached. The sea was already claiming the tunnel for its own.
Ripples above her indicated a surface to the water. Her beak broke into air. She found herself in a small air pocket, perhaps ten paces wide. It was very cold in here. Mist jetted from Vixa’s open mouth. She swam quietly in a circle, surveying the walls of the cave. By the marks on the stone she could tell that this area had been carved out by the chilkit.
Suddenly, Vixa saw something protruding between the rocks. She moved closer. It was a foot. She reared up and nudged the foot with her beak. To her shock, it moved.
“Who’s there?” asked a weak voice, speaking Elvish.
She squeaked in response. A pale face appeared among the dark rocks. Naxos!
“Vixa Ambrodel, how nice to see you,” he said as casually as though they were meeting on the street.
She called up her human form. Though she’d transformed several times now, the sensation still astonished her. Her limbs stretched and the world changed. The dense muscularity of the dolphin was replaced by the tall litheness of the elf maiden. Soon she was treading water, her teeth chattering with the chill. She levered herself onto the narrow shelf of rock.
“Forgive me if I don’t rise,” Naxos whispered, gesturing to his injury. Coryphene’s spear had taken him in the hip. The wound was clean, but large.
“Praise Astra! You’re alive!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for you for days!”
“Looking for me?” His face twisted. “For Coryphene, I suppose.”
Her eyes flashed. “You say such a thing! Coryphene thinks you’re dead, you stupid blueskin!”
He smiled wanly. “I beg your pardon, Princess. Pain and hunger have taken away all my charm, I fear.”
He lay in a depression in the rock, with nothing to soothe his wound or make his berth comfortable. Vixa couldn’t believe he still lived after lying in this damp, cold place for three days. She knelt beside him.
“So Coryphene thinks me dead? Let us hope that mistake will prove fatal for him,” Naxos said softly. He winced as he shifted position.
“Kios has pledged his loyalty and that of the sea brothers to Coryphene and Uriona.”
“Ah, brotherhood,” Naxos sighed, but his heart wasn’t in the sarcasm.
Vixa said, more cheerfully, “Now that I’ve found you, we can all escape. You and I can carry Armantaro and Gundabyr to land.”
He gestured to his hip. “I’m not going anywhere like this. The muscle’s damaged, and if I start bleeding in the water, the sharks will finish what our Protector started.”
They looked at each other silently, pondering their predicament. Water dripped from overhead. “I’ll bring you food and find some medicine,” Vixa said firmly. “We’ll heal your wound,
“No.”
“What?”
“Coryphene will notice your comings and goings. If he suspects I still live, he and that witch-queen of his will smell me out with their magic.”
Naxos sat up, aggravating his injury and causing him to give vent to a howl of pain and anger. His breath hissed between his teeth, and he went on more calmly, “Listen, Princess. Do you know the precinct of the temples, in the city?” She nodded. “In the temple of Zura you will find a cistern fed by fresh water pouring from the mouth of the god’s image. You must go there, fill an amphora with the water, and bring it back here to me.”
“Why? Will it heal you?”
“Yes.… Yes, it will.” There was a slight hesitancy to his words.
“And what else?” she asked suspiciously.
“Nothing that matters. Bring me the water, but be certain to seal the amphora before you swim out here. Don’t let the water of Zura mix with seawater.”
Vixa slid back into the pool and resumed dolphin form. She caught some small fish and brought them back for Naxos. The ravenous Dargonesti ate them with gusto. At his instruction, she brought him several long strands of kelp. These he made into a thick pad, pressing it to his wound.
“Bring back the water of Zura, Princess, and we will escape the same day!” he adjured her.
She bobbed her dolphin head vigorously in reply and sank beneath the water.
Chapter 15
As the days went by, the thirty or so slaves who’d survived the flooding of Nissia Grotto began to drift out of the House of Arms. Singly and in pairs, as boredom overcame their fear of the Dargonesti, they wandered out of the citadel and into the city.
What Gundabyr found strange was that he never saw any of them on his jaunts through the streets, and none of the former slaves ever returned to the House of Arms. Six days after the battle, only a handful of men remained in the headquarters of the Urionan army. These were drylanders too sick or too injured to be up and about.
Three days earlier Armantaro had stormed off to locate Vixa, and he’d not returned either. A messenger had come from the palace bringing word to Gundabyr that the colonel was remaining there, to be with his princess and
