'Someone who will stand against me and defeat me,' Iakhovas explained. 'You know how these legends are. Humans and elves all believe in these great romances of men and elves that are able to triumph against great and overwhelming odds.'
'Is it true?'
'Their myth of the savior?'
For a moment, Laaqueel hesitated putting voice to her reply because she didn't know how Iakhovas would react. 'Yes.'
Iakhovas shook his head and laughed again. 'Little malenti, I helped create the myth of their savior. There is no savior. Any human they find who believes he is this one is only a fool one heartbeat away from death.'
'Why did you do that?'
Iakhovas raked a talon against the crystal brain coral, causing a tiny, high-pitched ring and said, 'Because I could. Because it amused me. Most of all, because it served me. If they didn't have the legend of their hero, they wouldn't do the things I need them to that will insure my success.'
'What do you need from them?'
He raked her with his harsh gaze. 'You know more than any other at this time, little malenti. Don't get any greedier than I can tolerate.'
Laaqueel felt a surge of anger thrill through her. Only days ago he'd helped her rebuild her faith, now he was pushing her at arm's length again.
'At ease,' Iakhovas told her. 'I only want you to remember your boundaries for your own benefit. Not mine.'
Carefully, Laaqueel pushed water through her gills and dropped her eyes in deference to his authority. In many ways he was correct. She had her faith, and that would be enough. That strength would serve her as she served Sekolah.
'And to answer your question, the elves believe the Taleweaver will help them rebuild their histories and allow them some measure of a chance to defeat me once the savior is found. However, as the Taleweaver moves to the ripples they feed him, so does he serve the undercurrent I've had in play for thousands of years.'
Listening carefully, Laaqueel filed the information away in her mind.
'There are, in the Sea of Fallen Stars-or Seros as they call it there-beings who are unlike any of those elsewhere in all of Toril. They can prove to be somewhat difficult to deal with. And if I-if we-do not move cleverly while we are there, the Sea of Fallen Stars can become a trap. I have no intention of allowing that to happen.'
Laaqueel tried to listen to any sign of fear or anxiety in his voice, but there was none. Only the confidence he always exuded sounded in it.
'Now come, little malenti, and let me show you the brethren to We Who Eat that I've spoken of. They are there, and they are kept behind a wall that is meant to keep them from taking over all of Seros, as is their right.'
'Sekolah would never allow such a thing,' Laaqueel said. The idea of sahuagin penned up, being made to stay in one spot was unthinkable.
'The Great Shark will tolerate it no longer,' Iakhovas said. 'That's why you and I were brought together here and now. We will bring them their freedom, and the people of Seros will know what it means to have doom suckled to their breasts like a vampiric child.'
Curious and a little afraid to find what he was saying was true, Laaqueel peered into the crystal brain coral.
The image of the sea elf and the old surface dweller astride the seahorse floating down into the ancient city faded from the crystal's depths. In seconds it was replaced with the image of a sahuagin hunting party armed with nets and tridents.
'They are different,' Laaqueel breathed, surprise filling her and driving away her own fears and doubts. Their anterior fins radiated from the sides of their heads as did the ones in the outer seas, but they flowed longer, reaching back along the skull until they merged with the dorsal fin at the top of their shoulder blades. Also, their coloring tended more toward blue shades than green. In fact some of those Laaqueel saw were teal and turquoise colored. A great number of them had speckles and stripes, like the markings they had as hatchlings.
Iakhovas touched the brain coral and the image changed again. When it cleared once more, it showed a massive wall lying under a stretch of ocean, only a short distance from the surface. The wall looked smooth, obviously manmade and constructed with care. She knew how massive it was from comparing the fish and the hated sea elves swimming nearby.
'We Who Eat of Seros are held captive in a tiny portion of all that is available. The elves and surface dwellers call the area the Alamber Sea. None of the sahuagin trapped inside it have ever been allowed to leave that area in any great numbers. Only hunting groups in twos and threes have escaped through the sea elf guards that man the wall.'
Laaqueel was horrified. 'But if they're not allowed to migrate, how do they live? If they're not careful, they could over-hunt an area-'
'And die?'
Laaqueel said nothing. It was too ghastly to put into words. When sahuagin over-hunted a region-which was seldom-there were whispered stories of how they'd turned on each other, eating the young and the weak until the region repopulated and the hunting was good again. It was one thing to eat another after death, or after a blood challenge, but preying on each other as a food source wasn't permitted except under the harshest of circumstances.
'Yes, little malenti. Those of your brethren have had to be careful over the years. The horrors you imagine, they've had to live through. That wall is over a hundred miles long, sixty feet tall, and a hundred feet thick. The sea elves and their allies have kept garrisons along it two miles apart to patrol. They call it the Sharksbane Wall.'
Laaqueel burned the name into her memory, knowing it would forever live in infamy among the sahuagin.
'Until now, the elves and their allies have believed that wall to be impenetrable, but no more. I'm going to change that.'
'You must tell the others,' Laaqueel said, knowing the outrage would fire the blood of the warriors.
'I will. When the time is right. Now I am telling you.'
'When we free them, what then? They will be hunted.'
Iakhovas nodded. 'Yes, they will. Probably more hunted than anything ever before in the history of Seros. The sea elves and most of the other underwater races fear nothing more than We Who Eat.'
'That is as it should be,' Laaqueel stated proudly, 'but they will have many enemies.'
'Only the inadequate fail, little malenti.'
Laaqueel looked at the long wall revealed in the crystal brain coral. 'It is as you say, as Sekolah wills.'
'Don't be so taken aback,' Iakhovas suggested. 'I've not come this far merely to free them from their prison that they might be killed. I've arranged allies for them. Other races in Seros who would like to see the haughty sea elves brought to their knees. The elves have a city there-Myth Nantar.'
Cold dread closed in around Laaqueel. She'd heard of the city, and of the dangers that lay there. 'The lost city of the elves?'
'One of them,' Iakhovas acknowledged. 'Myth Nantar is special to the Serosian sea elves. What have you heard of it?'
'That its elves were driven from it by wild magic they and their allies unleashed during one of their wars.'
Iakhovas gazed into the brain coral. 'When Myth Nantar began its fall and the magic ranged out of the sea elves' control, the sahuagin who are now trapped behind that wall raided there often. They helped drive out the last of the sea elves and claimed many treasures as their own.'
'Still, they fell against the greater numbers of the sea elves and their allies.'
'Yes, but then We Who Eat stood alone. It's not that way now. According to the prophecies of the sea elves, Myth Nantar will be returned to them in time to usher in a new period of greatness for their culture. They even believe they have a weapon there that will defeat me.'
'Defeat you?' Laaqueel asked, trying to absorb everything she was being told. 'We have no reason to journey to Myth Nantar.'
