Behroun Marhana of New Sarshel. While I have many talents of my own, I can also call upon my patron's material and financial resources, if I judge what I hear today to be in Marhana's interests.'
Nogah rasped something in a tongue Japheth didn't know, and then added, 'Listen, then, and see.'
The kuo-toa gestured toward the balcony opening. 'What do you see?' she asked.
Beyond the balcony's stone railing rolled the wide sea. The Green Siren rode the swells, and the numberless marine creatures along the shore continued to fulfill ancient drives to eat and propagate. Japheth also saw the other kuo-toa below the surface, much closer now than they had been before. They must be moving closer in case their mistress needed help in dealing with her visitors.
Captain Thoster said, 'A whole lot of nothing. So?'
'I see a world ready to be plucked,' replied Nogah. Japheth tried to ignore her squishy, lisping inflection to Common, like she was trying to suck the marrow out of a bloody bone with each word. His state of mind made it difficult to concentrate.
She continued, 'I see a world crying out for new direction. A world where those who align themselves properly will be rewarded with riches beyond their wildest dreams. What do you say to that?'
'I see that every time I pull alongside a merchant ship and demand the contents of their hold,' boasted Thoster.
'Baubles compared to what I offer.' Nogah sniffed.
'What exactly do you offer?' asked Seren.
'I offer you a measure of protection and even control when I summon up old lords and old races. When I call upon antique powers that dwarf any our world has heretofore known, everything changes. I'm offering you the chance to survive that change, and what's more, profit from it. Perhaps even exercise some measure of control over the events that fate might otherwise dictate.'
Neither Thoster nor Seren had an immediate reply. They seemed a little taken aback. Japheth said, 'A very kind offer, to be sure. Especially since most of us have just met. You must want something from us, if you're willing to give so much?'
The kuo-toa whip nodded, her eyes blinking rapidly. She said, 'Of course.'
'If you have the strength to call up these 'old lords and old races,'' queried Japheth, 'beings that can reorder the world in the manner you describe, what help from us could you possibly require?'
'Ah, that is the tangle, drylander. I have lost the talisman required to begin. It was stolen from me, and I need help to retrieve it.'
'Sure,' said Thoster. 'Why's it you can't get aid from Olleth itself, a city filled with kuo-toa? Come, Nogah, what need have you for me and folks I can gather?'
'You are perceptive, Captain Thoster. One of the reasons I enjoy our dealings so much. But your assumption is incorrect; Olleth will not help me. In fact, they want me dead.'
'You're a whip. They can't strip you o' that.'
'They can. They have. I have been named race traitor, blasphemer, and I've been excommunicated from the Sea Mother's church. No kuo-toa will have anything to do with me, other than try to skin my hide as a trophy.'
Japheth held his tongue, even though he could see kuo-toa below the water line with his crimson gaze. Obviously Nogah exaggerated the degree to which her own race reviled her. The kuo-toa he could see there were drawing closer still. Many had moved so close to the tower's base that the warlock could no longer see them below the balcony's floor. The kuo-toa had a strangely feral look to them-their eyes were smaller than Nogah's, more bestial. Strange.
Also, the day's light was waning. A sea mist was rolling in across the waves. Already the Green Siren was enveloped and lost to sight. The fog's leading face churned onward, sending streamers of mist snaking toward the shore and tower. Japheth had never seen anything like it. Then again, he rarely traveled by sea. For all he knew, the phenomenon was natural. The kuo-toa he saw converging through the wave-tossed shallows were not alarmed by the advancing mist. In fact, by their sudden unnerving grins, it seemed they welcomed its arrival.
Thoster was saying, 'For the sake of argument, let's say you ain't lying to me. You really do need my help and that of these others. Who stole this talisman from you, and where can we find the thief?'
The warlock wanted to know more about these 'old lords and old races.' Japheth had some experience with ancient beings who promised great power. Nothing was ever simple when it came to such extraordinary guarantees. The single 'old lord' he had discovered and entered into a pact with had ultimately proved an alarming force in Japheth's life.
Certainly, if not for the Lord of Bats, the crimson road would have claimed the warlock long before now. Being alive, no matter the situation, had to be preferable to being dead. Right? It was a question he often asked himself. And despite his ties, he did delight in the various arcane tricks and amazing curses he was now able to call upon. And what about the impressive space hidden within the folds of his cloak? Other men would give far more than he to be able to wear such a thing as an article of clothing.
On the other hand, if not for the pact he'd sworn to the Lord of Bats, he wouldn't have to daily attend to the bidding of Behroun Marhana, a fouler and pettier man Japheth had yet to meet. What a convoluted series of events had put him in such thrall, he mused. If only-
'You're insane!' Seren's sudden accusation brought Japheth back to the present. While he had been touring, for the hundred thousandth time, his past indiscretions and failures, the others had continued their discussion. Something had riled up the war wizard, and even Thoster's eyes were wide with unexpected surprise. What had he missed?
Nogah raised a conciliatory, webbed hand. 'I grant that on its face, the task we must accomplish…'
A rivulet of mist edged across the tower and into the balcony. It seemed a live thing, a fog tentacle seeking something.
'How peculiar,' said the warlock. He wondered if the opaque cold front was natural weather after all. For one thing, his dust-enhanced vision was having difficulty piercing it.
Alerted by his comment, the kuo-toa glanced at the advancing mist streamer. She shrieked, then lisped, 'Gethshemeth knows!'
She backed away from the advancing streamer. She rasped, 'The mist is merely a cloak-it hides whatever force the great kraken has thrown at us!'
Great kraken? Japheth repeated mentally. What folderol is this?
The war wizard spat out a flurry of loose syllables and waved her red-runed wand. A gentle breeze issued from nowhere to blow toward the balcony opening. The mist's ominous advance slowed, hesitated, and then began to retreat in the face of the mild but unrelenting draft. But how long would the woman's casting keep it at bay?
An ululation of feral anticipation soared up from somewhere below the tower, hollow yet somehow more threatening because of the muffling, mysterious mist.
'The kuo-toa…' began Japheth, his voice a dry croak. He tried to shake off the lethargy the traveler's dust sometimes produced when he didn't succumb to its vision of the burning road. 'The kuo-toa outside that are converging on us-are they with you, Nogah?'
She hissed, blinked rapidly. She said, 'Fool! I told you I am anathema in Olleth. The Sea Mother has demanded my head for my affront. But worse, all those I subverted with the Dreamheart now follow Gethshemeth, the great kraken. It sends them against me now, lest I contrive a plan to take back what it stole!'
Seren broke in. 'Fool? You're asking us to go against a great kraken and call us fools?'
The moist patter of many squishy feet sounded loud on the open stair.
Captain Thoster drew his slender straight-sword from its silver sheath. Metallic disks inset flush in the blade's side whirred and spun with golem-like precision. A greenish fluid pulsed within straight, hair-thin conduits that ran from hilt to tip, whetting the fine edge of the blade with an emerald sheen. Thoster called it his Blade of Venom, an antique but deadly weapon found among Lantan's watery remains. A product of vanished gnome craftsmen, who infused knowledge of golems and gears into their works.
Seren began the opening phrases of a spell.
Anusha… Japheth couldn't see her. Was she gone, or had the sensitivity granted by his traveler's dust passed?
'Are we facing the great kraken itself?' asked Thoster. The captain stared into the wide, fog-obscured opening on the balcony. 'It could reach this high, I think.'
