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.
'Many of you saw an enemy leave here just now astride one of our own hippocampi. Whatever you think you saw, know that you have witnessed the coming of Persana's Blade. My son Keros is triton no longer, but I pray that he will forever remain safe, and that he find his destiny among the waters of Seros.'
It had taken Moras over a tenday to recover, and during that time he thought about how the claw could have bonded to Keros during the fight. He found his answers among some lore about the Armory.
Of all the things of power in Seros, Xynakt's Claw provided the greatest power but extracted the greatest price of one's soul. It was drawn to emotions, and while it fueled them and gave them more power, the touch of that talisman ultimately only brought corruption. In hopes of finding some hope of redemption for his son, Moras traveled to the Library at Coman in eastern Pumanath. There he finally found the ancient coral tablet that held the Prophecy of Persana's Blade.
As he read the ancient tablet, he felt both compassion for the currents on which Keros must now swim, and sorrow for the loss of his son. The tablet lay before him and he committed its words to memory once again. Moras vowed to watch and listen and wait. He would be the chronicler of the deeds of Persana's Blade, the gods be willing. He read the words aloud, a vow to Persana in honor of and in petition for Keros, his son.
'Grafted by Darkness, Persana's Blade shall come to the guardians from an enemy.
'Forged in Anger, Persana's Blade shall become light from darkness.
'Tempered by Sorrow, Persana's Blade shall protect all save one.
'Wielded in Fear, Persana's Blade shall fight darkness within and without.
'Guarded by Duty, Persana's Blade shall be forever on guard, but never a guardian.'
AND THE DARK TIDE RISES
7 Eleint, the Year of the Gauntlet
The last rays of the setting sun spun out over the waters of the Inner Sea, transforming its rippled surface into shimmering gold. Umberlee's Fire, the sailors called it, and considered it a good omen, a sign that the Sea Queen had blessed their work. Morgan Kevlynson stood on the bow of the sea-worn fishing dory that had served his family for years and ignored the spectacular display. Absently, he pushed a strand of coal-black hair from his face, blown there by the swirling, salt-flecked fingers of the wind, and let his thoughts wander beneath the fiery skin of the sea.
Darkness surrounding, like a cocoon, the wild impulses of the deep; blue-green presences where sunlight caresses sea-halls.
There were mysteries here. He knew that as surely as he knew his own name. The sea held an ancient wisdom-wild and untamed; carried dark promises upon its broad back. And sometimes, when he sailed the waters in silence, they called to him.
Today was such a time.
Morgan closed his eyes, absorbed in the dance of wind and wave and foam. He felt a familiar emptying, as if some inner tide receded; his heartbeat pulsed to the rhythm of the sea, slow and insistent, like the whitecaps that struck the side of the dory, until everything became that rhythm-heart, boat, sky-the world denned in a single liquid moment.
That's when he saw her: eyes the color of rich kohl, skin as green-tinted as the finest chrysoberyl, and blue- green hair that flowed more freely than water itself. Yet, there was a sadness, a vulnerability about this creature that set an ache upon him more fierce than any he had ever felt. He was about to ask what he could do to set a smile back upon her face when she opened her mouth and 'Tchh, laddie! Lay off yer sea-dreamin' and give us a hand.' The voice was deep, resonant, and rough as coral, worn smooth only by the companionable lilt of the fishermen of the Alamber coastline.
Morgan opened his eyes and spun quickly to face the sound, only just catching himself as his sudden movement set the dory rocking. Angus, his grandfather, sat athwart the starboard gunwale stowing line with the ease of long practice. The old man's sun-burnished skin covered his face and hands like cracked leather. A thick shock of silver hair crowned the ancient fisherman's bowed head, and his rough woolen clothes were worn thin and dusted with dried salt. Despite the weathering of years, Angus showed no signs of slowing down. His wits and his grasp remained firm, as was the way of those who spent their entire lives fishing the rough shores and islands of Alamber.
Despite himself, Morgan smiled at the thought of his grandfather ever needing anyone's assistance. 'But Granda, I was just-'
' Tis sure I knew what you were about, lad,' the old man interrupted. 'Moonin' over the water. Tis not natural. The sea'd just as soon swallow you up as leave you be. Never doubt the right of that, boyo. She's a fickle lover, she is, and a man cannot hope to understand her.'
Morgan sighed, moved to the small wooden mast at the center of the boat, and carefully folded up the coarse cloth that made up the dory's only sail. He had heard this same lecture at least three hundred times. His grandfather would never tire of it. The old man's voice droned on as the young fisherman gathered up the now-thick bundle of sailcloth. It was difficult to keep the irritation out of his movements. Morgan was sure that he felt his grandfather's disapproving stare when he dropped the cloth a bit too forcefully into its storage area beneath the prow.
Still, the old fisherman continued his lecturing. It was not fair, really. Morgan had lived nearly eighteen summers-and had sailed for most of those. He was no land-bred lackaday, ill-prepared for work upon a fishing boat, nor was he a pampered merchant's son come to the Alamber coast on holiday. He was a fisherman, born into one of the oldest fishing families on the Inner Sea. Yet his fascination with the sea seemed to frighten his grandfather- and the close-knit inhabitants of Mourktar.
Thinking back, he knew the reason why. The superstitious villagers had never really accepted him. His mother dead from the strain of childbirth, his father lost in grief so deep that he sailed out into the Inner Sea one winter night, never to return, Morgan had grown up wild, spending many a sunset running across the rocks and cliffs that jutted out over the water, listening to the song of the waves and breathing in the salty musk of the wind. 'Sea- touched,' they had called him. Changeling. Pointing to his black hair and fair skin, so different from the sun-golden complexion and reddish hair of Mourktar's natives, as outward proof of the very thing they whispered softly to each other in the deep of night, when the wind blew hard across the shore. Even now, Morgan knew that many still made the sign of Hathor behind his back if he gazed too long out at sea or sat on Mourktar's weathered quay in deep thought.
He searched for signs of bitterness, for some resentment of his reputation, but found none. He had grown up with the simple reality that no one understood him. He had friends, conspirators who were happy to while away the time between childhood and manhood by stealing a mug or two of frothy ale from old Borric's tavern or playing at war amid the scrub-choked dunes, and there were evenings enough of stolen kisses beneath the docks. But no one truly knew what went on in his deepest core, that silent part of him that heard the measured beat of the sea's heart, that felt its inexorable pull like a vast undertow of need. No one could know these things-except perhaps his father.
Morgan shuddered at that thought and shook himself free of his reverie. His frustration and resentment drained out of him, leaving behind only emptiness and a numbing chill. The sun had nearly fallen beneath the
