Mervidia (30 page)

Cassondra clamped her gills down tightly.
She realized that, in her anxiety, she was flooding the water with her scent, one tinged with her fear. The grogstack easily smelled the aroma as they came down the tunnel.
Enough of that,
she said inwardly.
You are not some bristlemouth, swimming in panic away from a frilled shark.
She opened the shutter on her lantern wide, letting the pure orange light from the cut orihalcyon inside flood the tunnel.
You are a member of the Divine Family, a direct descendent of the First King, and a daughter of House Lumen.
She straightened her spine, realizing that, in her fear, she had begun to curl up into a timid little ball. She raised the lantern defiantly in front of her. Cassondra gripped the spear she had taken from Captain Raygo tightly and brought it to bear so that the tip pointed at the roof of the dead end cavern. The weapon was readied, but not held in front of her as though she feared attack.

As the two
grogstack rounded the corner and came into view, she called out. “Hold! Who goes there?” she asked, summoning every bit of courage and defiance she could muster. “Identify yourself.”

The two big merwin froze as they came into the light of Cassondra’s bright lantern, squinting against the glare.
Though the distinction was tenuous at best - they were both giants compared to the ethyrie - the larger of the two had dark rubbery skin and an elongated skull. A line of slender teeth ringed his mouth like a gulper fish. When he spoke, Cassondra could see that several rows of shorter, though no less sharp, fangs filled his mouth. The teeth explained the muffled quality of his voice when he spoke.

“S
hhulkag,” he replied, his abundance of fangs, both in and outside his mouth, causing him to slur his words. The grogstack had a thick muscular torso that tapered down to a long finless, eel-like tail. At its end was a ragged outcropping of thin clear tendrils, as though his body had tried to grow proper flukes but had given up in an early stage of development.

The other
grogstack raised a webbed, seven fingered hand, placing it on his companion’s chest. “You don’t have to tell her nothin’, Sulkag,” he said in his strange high-pitched warble. “She’s the one in
our
mines. What’s your name, pretty fish?” he asked, his mouth widening into a disturbing smile. Whereas Sulkag’s was a uniform black, the other merwin’s skin was a mottled mosaic of sickly dark greens, angry reds, and yellow spots that may have been a natural part of his skin or might have been lesions. It was not unheard of for even grogstack to succumb to the strange energies that flowed from raw orihalcyon.

The thought made Cassondra’s skin begin to itch.
She had not planned on descending into the Deep Mines and had taken no precautions against exposure to the raw ore. It was another reason that she needed to escape the caves as quickly as possible.

“I am Cassondra of House Lumen, daughter of the Divine Family,” she stated boldly, hoping to intimidate her way out of her
predicament. “And to whom do I have the honor of speaking?” she asked.

“My pardon,” the mottle-skinned
grogstack said sarcastically, his voice thick with disdain as he placed his large hands on his hips. As he did so, his strange lower appendages came together and he sank to the cave floor. The weird fins at the end of the twin limbs bent at right angles towards her, and he rested them flat against the stone beneath. As they came into the light, Cassondra could see that the small fins had bones in them and were tipped in claws like the merwin’s seven fingered hands, though larger. “I’m Gotarm and my friend here is Sulkag,” he stated in his high-pitched ululating voice. “Welcome to the Deep Mines,” he said in an obvious mockery of what he considered to be polite conversation.

“I thank you for your welcome,” Cassondra said, ignoring the merwin’s derisive tone.
“However, I am afraid I cannot stay,” she said absolutely. “I am meeting someone and seem to have gotten lost. If you’ll excuse me....” The ethyrie began to move tentatively forward, but the grogstack barring her way did not move.

“Where you goin’?” Sulkag said, his voice earnest.
The black-skinned grogstack was not playing along with his companion’s jeering, either because he did not have the inclination or he didn’t have the mental capacity to figure out what Gotarm was doing. Cassondra guessed it was the latter.

“As I said,” she stated more forcefully, letting a note of irritation leak into her voice.
“I cannot stay. I am meeting someone and find that I am already late. Move aside and let me pass,” she ordered.

Neither
grogstack twitched a malformed fin to comply.

“Do you mean to obstruct me?” she demanded,
gathering all the heat she could in her voice. “Need I remind you that I am a member of the Divine Family and daughter of House Lumen? They will not take kindly….”

“Look
princess
,” Gotarm interrupted, his grin widening even further. “Even if you are all that,” he waived his many-fingered hand, casually dismissing her heritage. “No one down here cares. You’re not in Mervidia anymore. You’re in the Deep Mines, where houses and families don’t mean a floating heap of fish crap.” The mottle-skinned grogstack pushed off the bottom of the cave with his bizarre lower limbs and began moving them gently back and forth, propelling him slowly forward.

Taking a cue from his friend, Sulkag twitched his tendril-tipped tail and advanced as well.

“The only thing that matters down here, pretty fish, is what you can do and what you can keep others from doing to you.” As Gotarm got closer, Cassondra caught a glimpse into his mouth. Where Sulkag had an overabundance of teeth, the mottle-skinned grogstack had none. His toothless maw began to widen, forming a large circular shape, and from the depths of his throat a thick tendril emerged. The tube was blotchy like the rest of him and had a large flat sucker attached to the end. As she watched the sucker expanded, the tissue along its surface retracted to expose several concentric rings of tiny teeth. The small fangs began to pulsate in and out of view in anticipation.

“I don’t think Ambrose will be happy with you, if you do that,” Cassondra blurted out.
Please, please let them believe me,
she pleaded silently.

Both
grogstack stopped.

“What you shay?” Sulkag asked.
The black-skinned merwin looked at his companion. “Did she shay, Ambroshe?”

“Quiet,” Gotarm snapped, his eel-like tongue darting back into his mouth.
He stared hard at Cassondra. “How do you know that name?” he demanded.

The
ethyrie took a quick gulp of water, hoping her desperation did not show on her face or in her voice. “Master Kalku Ambrose sent for me,” she lied. “Unfortunately, I have never been here before and became lost. I am sure he would be most grateful to you, if you could see to it that I arrived safely, and most cross should I come to any harm.”

Cassondra fought the urge to hold her breath.
She had talked her way out of many situations in Mervidia, even recently getting Raygo to give up his prized spear. However, she had never been in a situation like this, when her life dangled like a bleeding fish before a hungry shark. She tightened her grip on the shaft of her pilfered weapon and tensed the muscles along her back and tail. She lowered the lantern in her other hand, preparing to swing the source of illumination if necessary. She knew she had little chance of defeating them, but she did have
some
training in fighting with a spear.
If I can just make it past them, maybe I can escape,
she thought desperately.
Of course, then I’d still have to find my way out,
she realized, her heart fluttering rapidly in her chest. The Deep Mines were a warren of tunnels that would confound the craftiest of faera. They made the tiny merwin’s escape passages look like the main thoroughfare of Mervidia by comparison.
Even if I make it out,
she lamented,
where am I going to go? Back to the city?
she scoffed.
Raygo would be more than happy to run me through and get his treasured spear back in the bargain. No, I will stay here and fight,
she concluded.

She began to slowly lower the spear in her hand,
further tensing her tail to dart forward in the hopes that she would be able to catch at least one of the grogstacks by surprise and finish him before the other tore her into bite sized chunks. She took a deep inhalation of water, seeing if either of the merwin had noticed her behavior. Neither grogstack seemed to have noted the change in her disposition.

“She’sh lying,” Sulkag stated, though the doubt in his voice was clear.
He stared hard at Cassondra. “You’re lying.” The ethyrie wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince with his declaration, but it didn’t seem to be working on himself.

“What if she’s not?” Gotarm asked his fellow
grogstack.

“She hash to be,” the large merwin said, becoming even more unsure of his own words.

“You’re probably right,” Gotarm replied.

Cassondra brought her spear arm back slowly, preparing to thrust it into the smaller
grogstack’s chest when he came forward again.

“But what if she’s not
?” the mottle-skinned merwin said, hesitantly. He looked to Sulkag for guidance, but the larger grogstack had none to give. Gotarm returned his gaze to Cassondra, studying her for a long time. It reminded her of a trainer looking at a gravely wounded frilled shark, trying to decide how much of a danger it still presented, while simultaneously trying to figure out the most efficient way to kill it.

“What do we do?” Sulkag asked, his outer teeth twitching in either anticipation or uncertainty.
The grogstack still clearly wanted to kill and eat her.

And not necessarily in that order,
she joked morbidly to herself. However, the threat of Ambrose’s wrath was apparently enough to give him significant pause.

“We’ll take her to him,” Gotarm said, reaching a decision.
“If she’s tellin’ the truth, maybe Ambrose will reward us.”

“And if she’sh not?” Sulkag asked, though he clearly knew the answer to the question he posed.

“Then we eat her.” Gotarm’s splotchy face split in a large predatory grin.

Chapter Thirty

Cassondra floated
next to the larger grogstack, her upper arm held tightly in his grip. Now that she was closer to him, much closer than she ever wanted to be, Cassondra noted that Sulkag was completely devoid of scales. His body was covered in a thick rubbery black skin, like that of an octolaide. Despite his tendril-tipped tail and fang-filled mouth, the grogstack’s blood obviously leaned heavily towards the tentacled merwin race.

I wonder which one it was?
she pondered, knowing she was trying to distract herself from her upcoming encounter.
Was it your mother or your father that rutted with a grogstack and spawned such a monster?
Cassondra’s mind, which had always been able to quickly consider and dismiss a myriad of hypotheticals in the political realm, shuddered at the possible carnal scenarios which had created the abomination grabbing her left arm.

And yet your deformities pale in comparison to your
tail-less friend,
she thought.
What bizarre mixing of blood produced
that? Try as she might, she could not long keep her eyes from the strange limbs that hung from Gotarm’s lower torso.
It might not be a result of mixed blood
, she considered. The strange energies that emanated from raw orihalcyon ore were known to warp merwin’s bodies.
Perhaps your mother spent too much time in the mines,
Cassondra thought. It would certainly explain the smaller grogstack’s mottled skin and grotesque deformities.

The pink-scaled
ethyrie’s contemplation of her
escort’s
unfortunate disfigurement was broken, as Gotarm maneuvered the spear he had taken from Cassondra before him. She had been led from the mines to an unremarkable outcropping of stone, not far from the edge of the massive trench in which the Deep Mines resided. The mound was covered by an expansive colony of tubeworms that stretched in every direction, to the very edge of the orange light cast by her orihalcyon lantern. Gotarm was waving the butt of the ornate spear across the tubeworms in front of him.

Cassondra leaned forward, as much as Sulkag’s stone-like grip would allow, and peered at the cylindrical creatures that covered the stone.
They, and the surface to which they were attached, seemed unexceptional, yet Gotarm had swum directly to this spot. As she watched, the tubeworms retracted into their protective hollow pillars, built from their own mineral-rich secretions.

Seemingly satisfied with the result, the splotchy-skinned
grogstack swam backwards, using his weird lower limbs to hover in the water a couple spear lengths from the tubeworms he had just disturbed. There he waited.

What was that supposed to accomplish?
Cassondra wondered irritably. She had been unceremoniously dragged here by these foul merwin and now they were playing with the local wildlife. Despite her anxieties regarding her encounter with the mysterious Ambrose of House Tenebris and her hopefully lifesaving gamble, she was beginning to get irritated. She was not used to being made to wait.

“What are we doing?” Cassondra demanded, looking at Sulkag.
“Why am I floating here watching you play with tubeworms?” Her volume rose with her anger. “You are supposed to be taking me to see Ambrose.”

“And so they have, Cassondra,” said a strangely resonant voice.
“Though, I am at a loss as to explain why.”

The
ethyrie’s head turned towards the sound of the voice. A long gap appeared in the colony of tubeworms, a thin vertical line of darkness that quickly resolved itself into an opening portal. As the door swung inward, Cassondra realized her mistake. What she had originally assumed was an unremarkable mound of rock covered in tubeworms was, in fact, the cleverly hidden entrance to Ambrose’s dwelling.

As the
octolaide emerged, his dark aqua tentacles slithered ahead to grip the edges of the doorway and propel him forward. The two grogstack began moving backwards, away from the kalku sorcerer. Sulkag tried to pull her back with him, his large hand still wrapped around her arm, but his grip had loosened in his dread. Cassondra jerked her arm free and held her position. Despite Ambrose’s fearsome reputation, she refused to cower before anyone.

“Ambrose of House Tenebris,” she greeted him,
formally naming the octolaide.

“I
belong to no house,” he replied, dark anger threading its way into his tone. “I left such things behind when I left Mervidia.” Ambrose’s tentacles writhed beneath him, propelling him slowly through the water until he stopped within arm’s reach of Cassondra. One of his tentacles absently passed a bone staff, topped with a large black pearl, to his left hand.

Icy fear slithered into Cassondra’s heart.
Even when she had been staring at the two grogstack, her back to the wall and her mind seized by the very real possibility that she would end up in their stomachs, she had not felt anything like this. Dread, bowel-loosening and all-consuming, dug tenaciously into her flesh. A strange sensation came over her, like her body was simultaneously being thrust into the scalding water from a thermal vent and chilled by the utter darkness of the Deeps. It was as though she were being burned and frozen at the same time.

“M-m-my apologies, Lord Ambrose,” Cassondra stuttered, her mouth, for the first time in her entire life, having trouble forming words.

“Another title which means nothing here,” the octolaide said, his voice becoming irritated. He tilted his head back marginally, looking down his small slitted nose and pointed chin at her. “What do you want little ethyrie, so far from your bright
safe
home in Mervidia?” The emphasis he placed on the word “safe” made her entire body shudder involuntarily.

She struggled momentarily to find her voice.
“I am Cassondra of House Lumen, and I wish to….”

“I know who you are, Cassondra, daughter of Ghita, scion of the so-called
Divine Family
, and machi seer. Introductions were neither requested nor are they required.” Ambrose reached out with his webbed hand and tapped Cassondra once in the middle of her chest with a single slender finger. The ethyrie’s vision darkened, and the water froze in her lungs for a single agonizing heartbeat. “What are you doing here?” Ambrose asked, his voice calm yet thick with quiet menace.

“I seek sanctuary, Master Kalku,” Cassondra said, her voice cracking as she found it again.

The octolaide stared at her for a moment and then shuddered. At first Cassondra didn’t know what was happening, but then a sound escaped Ambrose’s thin-lipped mouth; an involuntary exhalation of water. A tiny guffaw gave way to a chortle and then finally to a full throated laugh. The kalku’s hand went to his stomach as amusement overtook him.

Cassondra stared at Ambrose in disbelief for several moments and then looked over her shou
lder to see the reaction of the two grogstack, who had brought her to the kalku’s home. Both of the malformed merwin wore matching looks; equal parts shock, confusion, and wide-eyed terror. As Cassondra watched, Gotarm reached out blindly fumbling around until he found Sulkag’s huge arm. Taking a firm grip on it, the mottle-skinned merwin looked briefly at Cassondra and then back at the chuckling octolaide.

As the laughter subsided, she turned her head back to face Ambrose.
The kalku still wore a broad smile when he spoke.

“Why, in all the Deeps, would an
ethyrie, a member of the Divine Family no less, seek sanctuary here?” Ambrose asked. The black-haired octolaide indicated his modest home and its surroundings with a wave of his long slender-fingered hand.

Well, you have his attention now,
Cassondra thought to herself.
Best not to waste it.
She took a deep breath and answered. “I have been banished from Mervidia and disowned from House Lumen,” she stated simply. “I wish to live, and you are the only one who can offer me safety.”

Ambrose’s smile lessened.
“While I can certainly empathize with your plight, I fail to see why you sought me out.”

Cassondra opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her with an upraised hand and conti
nued.

“I can indeed ensure your safety, but,” the
kalku leaned forward, looking hard into Cassondra’s milky white eyes, “I fail to see why I
should
.” All of Ambrose’s earlier amusement was gone.

“I have something to trade in return,” the
ethyrie said, her heart racing.
Time to see if your gambit pays off
, she thought.
Otherwise, you’re about to meet a very ignominious end as a meal for two hungry grogstack… at best.
Cassondra remembered the tiny taste of kalku magic that Ambrose had shared with her, when he had tapped her chest. She shivered again.

“And what could you possibly offer that would remotely interest me, Cassondra of House Lumen?” the
octolaide asked, his voice rich with contempt as he named her house. “Sorry,
formally
of House Lumen.”

Cassondra felt a tiny blade twist in her heart as Ambrose voiced her
disgrace, but answered as confidently as she could. “Your daughter.”

It was Ambrose’s turn to look uneasy.
He recovered quickly however, motioning for the two grogstack to depart. “That will be all,” he said dismissively, without taking his eyes from Cassondra.

“But,” Sulkag said, his fang
-filled mouth muffling his words. “Mashter, she shaid you might….”

Ambrose slowly turned his head, letting his baleful gaze fall on the large
grogstack. The words stopped abruptly in Sulkag’s throat, as if the octolaide had wrapped one of his tentacles around the grotesque merwin’s neck.

Cassondra did not turn to look, not daring to take her eyes off the kalku, but she felt the rush of water hit the sinuous flukes of her tail as the two misshapen merwin darted away into the darkness.

“Speak,” Ambrose quietly commanded.

“Marin of House Chimaera is your daughter,” Cassondra stated boldly.
It was not a question or a supposition. She
knew
from her vision that it was true, and she hoped that her certainty would convince the kalku sorcerer.

To her astonishment, Ambrose did not seem surprised.
He simply raised the hairless ridge above his left eye and looked at her, silently waiting for her to continue.

“You knew that,” she gasped, her mind racing with the implications.

“I strongly suspected it, yes,” Ambrose replied coolly.

“And you did nothing about it?” the
ethyrie blurted out, immediately regretting it. The octolaide more than likely had his reasons for not pursuing the matter and would not care for having those reasons questioned.

Ambrose’s high forehead
furrowed and his eyes narrowed in irritation. “Is that all you have to offer in exchange for your life, little ethyrie? I hope not, because if it is you have wasted your time and mine. And while the former is a shame, the latter may prove to be most unfortunate,” his milky-white eyes darkened with ill intent as he lowered his head, casting his face in deep shadow, “for you.”

Cassondra’s mind raced, trying to find ways to salvage the encounter in a
manner that would ensure she saw another day. Her heart thumping loudly in her ears was not helping her concentration. “I am a powerful seer,” she said quickly, trying hard not to let desperation leak into her voice. Her words came out at a much higher pitch than she had intended, so she did not think that she had succeeded.

“And that means what to me?” Ambrose asked, his irritation slowly metamorphosing into a
nger.

“I am a member of the Divine Family,” she blurted out, hoping that her lineage would give her
powers of premonition enough weight that the octolaide would hear her out. “My mother is Ghita of House Lumen, a gifted seer in her own right and sister to King Reth himself, fifth king of Mervidia and a direct descendent of King Luz….”

“I know who you are and from whence you come,” Ambrose said angrily, cutting of Ca
ssondra’s recitation. He looked hard into the desperate ethyrie’s eyes. “I… do… not… care,” he stated clearly, biting each word off as it escaped his thin-lipped mouth. “I left the nonsense of houses and kings and the Divine Family behind when I left Mervidia.” Ambrose raised his hand and, once again placed a single slender finger on Cassondra’s chest. The ethyrie tried, unsuccessfully, not to flinch. To her credit, she at least managed not to retreat from his touch. “Now, you have come to my door, uninvited, and begin telling me that you were squirted out by a long line of self-important, self-involved, egotistical half-wits who’ve led a bunch of other half-wits for generations, and you think that’s going to gain you sanctuary?”

Frigid weakness began to creep into Cassondra’s limbs, the water around her suddenly thick and difficult to breath.
The light from her orihalcyon lantern darkened, and the coral lamp felt heavy in her hands. Her lungs labored in her chest, and her mind began clawing feebly for a way to save herself.

“Marin’s going to die!” she
croaked desperately. The magical assault did not stop, but it did not worsen either. “Your daughter is going to be murdered.”