Mervidia (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Jade grinned as she prodded the unconscious grogstack with a red coral-headed trident. There were plenty of the weapons stored in the bolt-hole. Besides, she appreciated the irony of using the armament after her captive’s disparaging remarks about their mercenary company. She had hauled the grogstack’s unconscious form through the trap door in the floor of the seemingly abandoned building on the outskirts of the Ghet, and into the secret hideout in the basement beneath. Unbeknownst to anyone outside the Red Tridents, Zane maintained a handful of such clandestine lairs around Mervidia. Each one held a cache of weapons, preserved rations, supplies for dealing with minor wounds, and usually a small cell for holding a prisoner. The cages weren’t meant for long term incarceration though. They were simply there to detain a merwin, or other creature, until a larger group of Red Tridents could be summoned to transport their prisoner. Though such a prison existed in their selected bolt-hole, it was empty, for now. Once Lachlan and Jade had disengaged their unconscious guest from the seifeira’s net, they had immediately strapped the grogstack to a raised stone slab and were preparing to interrogate him.

They had to wait for him to wake up though, and Jade was becoming impatient.
She poked the grogstack again. “For the love of the Deeps, would you wake up already,” she hissed. Whether it was the sharp points of the trident pricking his skin or the neondra’s insistent words that woke him, she did not care, but the bulky creature began to stir. “It’s about time,” she said, shooting an impatient look at Lachlan.

The tattooed
seifeira only shrugged his well-muscled shoulders in response. He leaned against a wall, into which had been carved several shelves. On them were a large number of jars and containers in a myriad of shapes and sizes. Some contained medical plants and poultices, while others were filled with food. On the highest shelf, away from all the other containers, were three off-white cylinders filled with substances to aid in the interrogation of those merwin the Red Tridents had in their custody.

Curse your farmer’s patience,
she thought. There were times when Jade appreciated Lachlan’s often slow methodic approach to matters, especially when they were alone; however, this was not one of them. She wanted this job over and done with as quickly as possible. There was a whirlpool about to open somewhere in the political landscape of Mervidia, and she wanted to be far, far away when it did. Many merwin were going to be pulled down, and she didn’t want to be amongst them.

Part of her worried for Lachlan.
Despite his physical prowess, the seifeira wasn’t as savvy about the subtle war that the High Houses had been waging amongst themselves for generations. She cared for him deeply, but if he was going to be dragged down with the others she wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to cut him loose to save herself - as would any self-respecting merwin.
Sorry, lover,
she thought, looking at his handsome face.
It’s nothing personal. It’s just the law of the Deeps. The slower swimmers get eaten, and the faster ones live on.

The
grogstack on the slab moaned and opened his eyes, grabbing Jade’s attention. “Hey ugly,” she said contemptuously. “You awake yet?” She poked him again with the trident, and he growled in response.

“Jade,” Lachlan said, his voice full of faux admonition.
“There’s no need to be rude. If you’re nice to our guest here, I’m sure he’ll tell us what we need to know and then we can send him on his way.” The seifeira gestured towards the captive grogstack with one of his webbed hands.

“Really?” the prisoner said, his milky white eyes widening with surprise and filling with hope.

Lachlan laughed cruelly. “No, of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re in for a lot of pain, and then you’re probably going to be executed, if not by us or our commander then at the hands of the Palace Guard.” Lachlan shot a conspiratorial look at Jade and then returned his gaze to the grogstack. “The only thing you really have a choice about is how much agony you’re going to go through before you talk. And trust me, you’re going to talk.” Lachlan inclined his head towards Jade. “She’s very good at getting information. I think it’s because she loves her job so much.” The seifeira and neondra grinned callously at the helpless merwin.

“We know you were there at the palace the evening the Queen was killed,” Lachlan said imp
atiently as though he were repeating himself yet again. “My sources, which are very reliable I might add, said that you were seen fleeing the palace after Queen Beryl’s body was discovered. Now, who hired you? And before you try to deny it, I know someone put you up to it. You’re not smart enough to come up with such a plan and execute it all on your own.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” the
grogstack spat and thrashed uselessly against the woven eel gut straps that wrapped around the stone and secured him in place. His smooth black tail strained against his bindings several times before he finally gave up, flopping impotently back onto the slab.

“We’ve got a fighter,” Jade said mischievously, as she retrieved one of the small cylinders from the
highest shelf behind Lachlan. The tube was a short hollowed-out bone from some creature. She didn’t know what kind nor did she particularly care at that moment. It was spell-crafted shut at one end and stoppered at the other by a thick piece of sponge. She removed the cork and then dipped a long slender blade into it. The weapon had been stored next to the container, specially made to slip down into the cylinder. When she removed the dagger, a thick yellowish-green slime clung to the tip of the weapon. The neondra re-stoppered the container. Looking at Lachlan, she casually stabbed the weapon into the grogstack’s tail, the slender blade easily penetrating the thick black skin. “I love fighters,” she said as the merwin began to scream.

“I didn’t know we kept that in these places,” Lachlan said in a conversational tone, despite having to raise his voice to be heard over the shrieks of the
grogstack. Even after Jade had removed the dagger from his flesh, their prisoner had continued to scream, his milky white eyes wide in agony.

The
neondra was impressed that Lachlan had recognized the substance she had used.
Your average kelp farmer doesn’t even know this stuff exists,
she thought,
much less would they have been able to figure out what it is after seeing it used.

“Some of them do,” Jade replied, also having to raise her voice to be heard.
“We’re just fortunate that this one was so well-supplied.” She indicated the bone container. “This stuff is expensive. I doubt even the captain can afford to have some in all of our bolt-holes.”

After a while the
grogstack stopped screaming, the pain from the toxin receding until the merwin simply panted with pain rather than howling in anguish.

Jade leaned forward looking into the
grogstack’s eyes. “Do you know what that was?” she asked.

The bound merwin shook his head rapidly, still unable to speak.

“Concentrated jellod toxin,” Lachlan supplied. “Very rare and very painful, but luckily it does no lasting damage. Also, it doesn’t take much to keep even a large strapping merwin like yourself in a
lot
of pain, which means she can keep this up for days before we run out. Don’t worry, you’ll still be healthy enough to attend your execution.” Lachlan leaned forward. “Like I said, you’ll tell us what we need to know, it’s just a matter of how much pain you go through before that happens. And that, my friend, is entirely up to you.”

“Go suck eel eggs,” the
grogstack sputtered defiantly between jagged clenched teeth.

“Wrong answer,” Lachlan said, floating back again.

“And not even an original one,” Jade commented, as she removed the sponge and dipped the dagger into the bone cylinder again. “You told us to do that earlier.” She jabbed the blade into the meaty part of the grogstack’s upper arm and the screaming started again.

“Not the brightest lanternfish in the school, is he?” Lachlan said, addressing his cohort.

“No, he’s not,” Jade replied, closing the container again to preserve its contents. “I may have to go get some more toxin if this keeps up,” she said, indicating the tube in her hand. After the pain had subsided, the prisoner refused to talk once more and the neondra stabbed him again with the poisoned dagger, this time in his abdomen.

Jade repeated the process a dozen times before the
grogstack, despite the pain pulsing through his body with each heartbeat, managed to stammer something through his clenched teeth between screams of pain. Once he had quieted down, Jade and Lachlan leaned in again. “What was that?” Jade asked. “I couldn’t quite make it out, you know, with all the yelling going on.”

“Y-y-you think you’re so smart,” the prisoner stuttered.
“S-so much smarter than us lowly grogstack.” The bound merwin took a few quick inhalations of water before he continued. He was still in an immense amount of pain, but somehow managed to keep talking. “I didn’t kill the queen,” he said. “The alarm was raised before I made it to her.”

“Shark crap!” Jade said, expletively indicating she did not believe the
grogstack’s story. “You’re just trying to get out of getting executed.”

“I swear it,” the
grogstack said desperately. “I never even made it inside the palace before the guards started swarming all over the place.” He took a deep inhalation of water, his chest rising and falling slowly. “Once they did, I turned tail and swam away as fast as I could.”

“A likely story,” Lachlan said, though he cast an uncertain eye toward Jade.

“It’s true!” the captive said, slowly recovering. This was the longest interval between doses of jellod toxin so far, and the grogstack was beginning to regain his strength. “You high merwin might be pretty, but you’re not very smart.”

Jade dipped her dagger into the tube of poison again, but Lachlan reached across the table and stayed her hand.
She looked irritated, but complied. “What do you mean? What are we missing?”

“You’re so
focused on the fact that I’m a
big ugly grogstack
that you’re not asking the right question,” he said smugly.

Jade broke her hand free from Lachlan’s grip and raised her hand to
jab the grogstack again.

“No!” the captive yelled.
“Wait! Wait! I’ll tell you what you want to know, just no more.
Please
,” he whimpered. “No more.”

“What question are we not asking?” Lachlan inquired, motioning for Jade to hold off on
stabbing the grogstack with more toxin.

“You know I was there,” the large ugly merwin said.
“I’ll admit that, but I didn’t kill the queen. There was someone else there too.” He whispered the last sentence, as though even here he feared he might be overheard. His eyes darted around the room nervously.

“Who?” Jade asked impatiently.
Despite Lachlan’s staying gesture, there was a part of her that truly enjoyed using the jellod poison on the grogstack. She had a job to do though and resisted the impulse to stab the merwin again. “
Who?”
she repeated, when their captive did not promptly reply.

“It was a
faera,” he said. “I never saw him before, but it was definitely a faera. As I crossed over the wall around the Royal Palace, I saw him swim off one of the balconies. I figured it was just another one of their spies. He didn’t see me, so I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Once the guards started yelling though, I figured out what had happened. There was no point in me sticking around if the guards were already swimming all over the place.” The grogstack let out an exhalation of water, the long narrative apparently taking a lot out of him.

Jade looked at Lachlan, wondering if the look of shock that the
seifeira wore was mirrored on her own face. “There were two assassins,” the emerald-scaled neondra said, the surprise making her voice seem tiny even in the small secret refuge. “And we were chasing the wrong one.”

“We were
sent
after the wrong one,” Lachlan corrected. The dark-haired seifeira looked suddenly angry. He darted across the room and grabbed his spear from where it leaned against the stone wall of the subterranean room. “Stay here,” he said to Jade. “I have to go talk to someone.”

“But,” the
neondra started to object. Lachlan cut her off with a decidedly uncharacteristic look of impatience.

“If what I think happened is true, you need to stay here and watch him,” Lachlan said, poin
ting at the captive grogstack with his spear. “He’s much more valuable than we originally thought.” He continued to speak over Jade’s protestation. “There’s something devious going on here. I need to talk to my contact and then make sure Zane finds out about this before anyone else. He’ll know what to do. In the meantime, we need to keep the grogstack here.” Lachlan crossed the room and took one of Jade’s hands in his own. The look in his eyes made the neondra bite back the questions that were bubbling around in her brain. It was an odd look, both imploring and anxious at the same time. “Please,” Lachlan said gently. “Just trust me.”

“I do,” Jade replied, somewhat surprised by her
own admission. She did trust him though, as dangerous as that could be in Mervidia. Still, she hated being given commands, by anyone, and bristled slightly.