Previous Chapter

There was a huge shell near the back of the cavern, embedded in the coral and filled to overflowing with sea water. Cassian studied the slow trickles spilling over the sides of the shell, wondering how it was the thing didn’t run out of water. There wasn’t any coming in from above. There wasn’t any large opening at the bottom of the shell where it could come in from below.

Well, it was hard to say that with certainty. The bottom of the shell was covered with small, ugly gray pearls numbering in the hundreds if not the thousands. They covered the bottom of the ten foot wide shell from side to side. It was difficult to determine the depth of the shell with how full it was but Cassian made a rough guess of eighteen inches to two feet. Near the center the pearls were stacked up in a heap that nearly filled it.

“Do you think the dragon planned to transform all of these?” Marta asked, staring at the shell in horror.

“Depends. Do they get more valuable if they’re transformed?”

Cassian meant it as an offhand remark but from his sudden look of concentration it seemed Adalai took it quite seriously. “That’s a good question.”

He pulled a glove off and poked a single finger into the water, his lips pursed to one side of his face. Nothing happened for a few seconds so Cassian asked, “Are you about to throw up again?”

“Let’s hope not.” The Arminger slowly reached down into the water, removed a single pearl from the top of the pile and pulled it out. “You know a lot about dragons, right, Cassian?”

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about dragons,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”

“Sure.” He rolled the gray orb between his fingers then gingerly lifted it to his nose and smelled it. Cassian tensed up, ready to react if it caused him another fit, but nothing happened. “Smells like saltwater.”

“Wonderful.” Cassian took it from him and threw it back in the water. “So what? Is it really a good idea to tinker with those things when we have no idea what they do?”

“Probably not,” Adalai admitted, drying his hand off on his doublet and getting to his feet. “I think I got the answer, though.”

“So do they get more valuable or less?” Verina asked.

“Less. Assuming my sense of smell did change when we ate the sea dragon it makes sense that the dragon would think the transformation made the pearls smell terrible same as I did. So why was it turning these pearls into something it found disgusting?”

“Especially when it could already use them to enthrall the Benthic.” Verina added. “The people in the coral don’t seem like they’d be very useful to a sea dragon. Even if they can survive without air to breathe they have to turn themselves into solid stone to do it and, while they’re like that, Clayhearts are essentially asleep. Was it trying to build a body of troops it could use on land?”

“Maybe they were just guards for the dragon’s treasure?” Cassian suggested.

“Then why are they buried in coral? That’s contrary to ideal guardian performance,” Adalai said. “No, the dragon wanted the pearls changed for some reason. I just can’t guess what.”

Cassian sighed. “Well, it’s something to try and figure out. Maybe we can tempt Captain Trill in here once she’s convinced the dragon’s dead. Hopefully she can tell us what these things are supposed to do. Keep looking around.”

“Do you want me to go back on guard? Verina asked.

“Yeah. I need to figure out if Cazador is under all this zalted coral and you don’t know what he looks like. Adalai, stay away from the pearls. The last thing we need is for you to get sick at the moment a dozen angry Benthic flop out of the water looking to kill us.”

They broke apart and went their different directions. After half an hour of searching Cassian concluded there were at least two dozen people buried in the coral in the front half of the chamber, none of which were his brother. On the other hand, all of them had big, glowing white pearls in the coral nearby. Which did create a new and troubling issue to work out, namely the fact that the ceiling had, by his count, eight pearls in coral formations dangling from above. The closest was not even remotely in reach from the ground. He was going to have to search those if he couldn’t find Cazador in any of the more accessible locations.

“Cassian? Adalai?” Marta’s voice drifted from the very back of the cavern. “There’s another mystery over here. You two can probably figure out more about this than I can.”

The cavern was larger than he had expected at first thanks to a steep slope that led down and away from the water. Cassian idly wondered how it was that this part of the cavern wasn’t flooded. Perhaps the dragon kept it drained for some reason. The coral was sparse compared to the front of the chamber, only heaped up in a handful of places, all marked with telltale pearls. Cassian counted ten of them.

Marta waited, standing beside the only patch of ground in the area that had no coral on it at all. Which was odd, since he counted a whopping seven pearls sitting there, laid out in a crescent moon, all larger and brighter than any he’d yet seen. The light from the pearls was bright enough that Cassian didn’t notice at first. It was only when he got within a few steps of Marta and she motioned for him to stop that he realized the half crescent wasn’t around the ground. It was around a hole full of water.

Kneeling down, Cassian realized it was a very shallow bowl carved into the stone of the cavern filled with liquid so still and calm it reflected the ceiling perfectly. He pulled off a gauntlet and dipped his hand into the water, surprised to discover it was ice cold. In all there were spots for thirteen pearls around the edge of the bowl. “Well, it’s not complete, whatever it is.”

“Do you think it’s a mirror?” Marta asked.

“I don’t know.” Cassian measured it by eye, estimating it was at least six feet across, maybe seven. “It’s a bit oversized for the Benthic. On the other hand, if the dragon made it for itself it’s on the small side of things. Regardless, I don’t think reflection is the purpose of the thing, both the dragon and the Benthic could shape water into a mirror whenever they needed one if that was what they wanted.”

She knelt down and poked at one of the pearls. “Could this be a shrine to one of the Benthic gods? What do they worship, the tide, the deep and the waves?”

“Don’t ask me. We Ironhands prefer the dry land. Until my brother went missing I was willing to go to great lengths to ensure I never wound up in the water, ever.” He walked a careful circle around the hole, checking to see if it led anywhere. However it appeared to be nothing more than a foot deep depression in the rock, unremarkable except for how precise it was.

“Cassian.” He looked up to find Adalai standing a few paces away, a glass and silver box held in one hand. “I’ll trade you.”

He got to his feet and crossed to the Arminger, studying the box with a curious eye. “What is that?”

“It’s a jewelry box, which makes sense for a dragon’s collection.” Adalai held it out for him. “What I want to know is what you see in it.”

Cassian took the box and turned it over in his hands, studying the swirls of decorative silver vines that wrapped the corners and edges of the box. It was well made and the silver was of a high quality. The glass wasn’t quite as good, with a few pits and a generally foggy cast to it, but that was to be expected from something like a jewelry box. All the higher quality glass had probably wound up in windows. He offered it back to Adalai. “It looks empty to me.”

The other man ignored it and knelt down by the depression in the ground, sniffing at it from a good distance away. “Strange.”

“What?”

“No smell. Either I got desensitized to it already or these pearls are different from the ones growing in the coral.”

“Or whatever made the smell is used up by the time they get to this stage,” Marta suggested.

“Strange no matter how you cut it.” Cassian set the glass box on the ground beside the bowl and knelt beside Adalai. “You seemed to know about the things the Benthic worship. Is this a part of their cults?”

“No.” He gingerly ran his fingers around the rim of the depression. “At least not for the Lord of Folded Waters, they make this weird knot in the water as an altar to him. I don’t know anything about the other two Benthic religions.”

“Do I want to know why you know anything about them at all?”

“It’s not as interesting as you think. I just read books on occasion.”
“Expensive hobby.”

“Believe me, I know.” Adalai carefully reached out and touched the middle of the seven pearls. As he did the water in the basin rippled as if something heavy had slammed into the ground on that side of the pool. “Interesting.”

Cassian watched him reach for the next pearl to his left, a sense of trepidation building behind his eyes. “Don’t do that again.”

“I won’t be able to work out what it does by looking at it.”

“I just decided it’s not that important.”

“Well I’m not so sure about that, Cassian. I’ve only seen something so deeply infused with purpose as this thing once before, when I visited Lome.” He pressed the tips of his fingers to his lips, hands together as if praying. “What if I try something else?”

Cassian took a large step back from the pool. “By all means.”

The Arminger reached out and plucked the pearl he’d just touched out of the floor. There didn’t seem to be anything holding it in place and Adalai didn’t seem to be in any discomfort from holding it yet just watching him disturbed Cassian to his core. Holding the jewel between two fingers, Adalai held it up to one eye. “Very strange.”

“What?” Marta asked.

“There’s some kind of impression on this pearl, although there’s no sign the engraving itself was made by human hands. I’m not sure why that would be.”

“Can you-”

“Cassian!” Verina’s voice drifted from the front of the cavern. “There’s Benthic coming through the water.”

“Zalt,” he muttered. “Come on, Marta. Adalai, work out what’s going on with that thing, if you can’t then leave it and join us. I’ll be back once we’ve dealt with whatever this crisis is.”

The crisis, at least for the moment, was Trill. “The Tidallais have found us,” she reported. “They’re coming up from the northern Spawning Nests in force and they’ve brought a Matriarch.”

“Is that good or bad?” Cassian asked. “When we bring Matriarchs with us it’s usually for peaceful, diplomatic purposes.”

“That’s not the Tidallais way.” She waved one finned hand in the vague direction of the coral. “Matriarchs have power over their children that will most likely prevent them from being enthralled by the dragon. I suspect this one has come to retrieve her daughters and dispose of their new master.”

“Wonderful. Verina, grab Adalai. It’s time for us to get scarce.”

Trill peered at him, her fronds lying flat against her skull. “You don’t believe the dragon will arrive to battle the Tidallais, do you?”

“Of course not. It’s dead.” Cassian walked to the edge of the water and looked down into the deepest area of the cavern’s submerged portion. “Can you tell if this is connected to the open ocean?”

“It is,” Trill said. “The currents are very easy to discern.”

“Would it be safer to leave this way or through the top?”

“That depends on what you mean by safe. It would be very dangerous to try and climb out the chute we came down; however if we attempt to leave by the underwater passage we will most likely run into the Matriarch, if not her daughters.”

Cassian thought for a moment. “The chute it is, then. Marta can encase us in her shield and the four of you can pull water up behind us. We’ll float out like a bubble.”

“I could do that,” the Hexton agreed.

“Moving that much water would be difficult but-”

“Cassian!” Verina’s shout carried a panicked tone. “Adalai’s figured out what the scrying pool does!”

He spun on one heel to look back into the cavern, an acidic reply on his lips. He was getting tired of getting yanked backwards and forwards every two minutes. It died away when he realized seven shafts of light were shooting up from the floor of the cavern.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

As he took off towards the back of the cavern again Trill called out, “We don’t have much time, Ironhand!”

“Get to the chute,” he replied. “We’ll join you in a moment.”

Assuming Adalai didn’t get them all killed first.

Previous Chapter

The vase was old, valuable and intended as decoration so it wasn’t nearly as interesting as coral covered people. Adalai’s curiosity pulled him away from the dragon’s trinket shelves towards the girls. To his surprise Cassian also got up, abandoning his post by the water, and went over to them as well. Marta gave him an amused look. “I thought you were watching our backs.”

The Ironhand didn’t answer, just balled up a gauntleted fist and smashed the coral twice, breaking a large chunk of it off. As the delicate branches of calcified sea creatures broke off they revealed a stone face underneath. Adalai snorted. “Just a statue. I suppose a dragon could collect those, as well, although letting coral grow over them probably impacts the value…”

Cassian gave him a confused look. “What are you talking about? These are obviously Clayhearts.”

The term didn’t jog any memories and, not for the first time, Adalai privately bemoaned his limited knowledge of Neronan Gifts. “I don’t follow.”

“A Clayheart can turn part or all of their body to earth or stone.” Verina motioned to the face. “But it could easily be a statue, too. What makes you think they’re Clayhearts?”

It was Marta who answered, a look of realization dawning. “Your brother is a Clayheart. They don’t need to eat or breathe if they’re fully transformed. You’ve been hoping to find him in a place like this, waiting for you to come find him.”

Adalai poked a finger at the stone face, trying to get an impression off of it with his Gift. On the one hand, the statue was oddly silent. Living creatures were totally devoid of impressions as well, so Marta’s Clayheart theory wasn’t impossible, but he had to wonder… “If these are Clayhearts, how do we wake them up?”

“Cazador says he’s aware of people who are within a few feet of him no matter how far into his transformation he goes,” Cassian said. He looked the coral up and down. One of the glowing pearls that gave light to the cavern was growing out of the top, near the top of the statue. “What do you make of that, Adalai?”

He gingerly touched the pearl with one finger and concentrated. Given the man-made nature of the speech pearls the Benthic had given them Adalai had a vague hope he’d get something off of the coral or the pearl. Neither substance gave off any useful impressions. “Either it’s a naturally occurring substance or it was created by the dragon and doesn’t have anything an Arminger can read to it. Your guess which is true is as good as mine.”

Cassian chewed on his lip. “Very odd. Well, before we worry too much about this we should see how many of these people – or statues – there are lying around this place.”

“What about the water?” Marta asked. “There’s still a chance more Benthic will come back here to check on things.”

“The Linnorm will watch it,” Verina said. “I’ll stay on this side of the cavern if you want to go further back to get a head count.”

That was what they wound up doing. Adalai picked through the coral away from the bric a brac shelves, choosing that direction so he wouldn’t be distracted by the tantalizing sparkle of the various treasures. Once he started concentrating on it he realized a few interesting things about the coral.

First of all, it wasn’t even. He wasn’t exactly a marine life expert but he’d been under the impression that coral tended to grow in layers as the old generations of coral died and new ones were born. However this coral grew in narrow towers that reached up to the ceiling or down from above. It didn’t have the gradual growth patterns he might expect.

And that was the second thing. There were colonies of the coral up on the ceiling, placed with no particular pattern and stretching precariously downward towards the ground in random intervals. It didn’t seem like normal coral behavior, although again he couldn’t say for sure. Most of the time there weren’t any pearls nestled in the coral.

Which was the third pattern he noticed. His first thought had been that the pearls were put in place to illuminate the chamber. Of course, the dragon could most likely see in the dark, if the changes that had happened to Cassian after eating it were any indication. However the Benthic Stellaris used anemones for light most of the time. They must need illumination to see and Adalai had no reason to think the Benthic Tidallias were any different. So perhaps the pearls were for the sake of the dragon’s thralls.

However the first pearl Adalai found on his own was also part of a coral formation that grew up around a stone figure. So was the second. Taken together with the one Verina had found and it was beginning to feel like a pattern. Although the pearl was not in contact with the encased statue, much less embedded in its forehead, Adalai still found himself wondering if it was related to the pearls the Benthic thralls featured somehow.

Adalai climbed a couple of feet up the coral formation and pried the pearl out with his dagger. The gem was about the size of his thumb and much lighter than he’d expected it to be. While the additional senses given by his Gift couldn’t draw any impressions from it there was something off about the pearl.

His mind kept going back to the Benthic thralls they’d seen the night they killed the sea dragon. The color of the light these pearls shed was similar to those embedded in the thralls and, furthermore, they’d encountered a few of those thralls not a hundred feet away. There had to be a connection somewhere. He was rolling the pearl between thumb and forefinger when a voice even raspier than his own said, “Who are you?”

It took him by surprise so much so that he almost dropped the pearl. The question came from the statue encased in the coral. Except it wasn’t quite a statue anymore. Its eyes had opened and revealed very human pupils, its face had taken on life-like movement and its sandstone skin was beginning to take on a more human tone.

“My name is Adalai Carpathea.” He slowly and gingerly climbed down off of the coral. “I am a bravo from Citadel Fionni, crossing the Drownway to Renicie. Who are you?”

“Biagio Clayheart,” the overgrown man said. “A condottieri from Lome.”

“How long have you been here, Biagio?”

“I…” His pupils widened and shrank, drifting back and forth in their sockets in a random and very worrying fashion. “I don’t remember.”

“Well, it’s underground,” Adalai mused. “It is hard to keep track of the time. Do you have any idea how many people are here or who they might be?”

“No… where is our lord?” Biagio began to jerk against the coral, the sharp stuff opening small cuts on his body as it scratched against him. The man’s skin reversed the process it had just gone through, reverting to stone.

“I don’t know. Held for ransom if the dragon has acted like the rest of its kind. Perhaps he’s been ransomed back already.” Adalai examined the coral and found it too sturdy to safely pry at with his sword so he cast about for something he could bash or lever with. A chunk of stone caught his eye a few dozen feet away. He held up the glowing pearl so the light would be better and walked over to retrieve it.

Biagio went insane. He began to scream, thrashing his head about in the coral that contained it as he bellowed garbled words and spat flecks of spittle. Adalai froze, staring at the berserk man in wonderment. The man did not have much room to move in but he made the most of it, thunking the side of his head against the coral with disturbing force and chafing one arm back and forth until his doublet tore and exposed the stony skin beneath.

Adalai took one step back towards the trapped man. His convulsions grew less violent. Realization began to dawn and Adalai rolled the pearl until it was clamped firmly in his fingertips and held it as close to the other fellow as he could without moving again. Biagio calmed down until his eyes almost focused again. They fixed on the pearl and stared with a lethal intensity.

With a scratch of sand under boot heels Marta skidded into view, her shield at the ready, a worried question on her face. Adalai waved for her to stay in place with his free hand. Very carefully he put one foot in front of the other and shifted another six inches closer to Biagio. The other man’s mouth fell open into something that resembled a smile and he said, “My lord…”

The trapped man remained quiet as Adalai gingerly crossed the remaining space between them. Eventually Biagio’s eyes lost focus and drifted closed again. Adalai placed the pearl back on top of the coral in a depression within reach then quickly moved away, yanking his hand back as if he expected the coral to try and grab him as well.

In the process he caught a rancid smell. Curious, he held his hand up to his nose and breathed in deeply, catching a stronger wiff of rotting meat or stagnant water.

“What is it?” Marta asked in a subdued tone. The other two had appeared behind her and were also watching him with a skeptical eye.

“I don’t know.” He looked around until he located another one of those pearls and walked quickly over to it, suddenly aware of how much the cavern echoed. If there was a person under all the coral he or she was buried much deeper than Biagio had been. The pearl was also larger and higher than the previous one, nearly two inches in diameter and sitting a good ten feet off the ground.

Adalai tugged his gloves on, both to protect against the rough edges of the coral and because he didn’t want to touch one of the things again, then climbed up to the glowing orb. He was dimly aware that the edges of the coral were sharp enough he could still feel them through the leather covering his hands. Once he was close enough he positioned his head so his nose almost touched the pearl. Then he took a shallow breath.

He dropped to the ground, retching in revulsion, and wound up flat on his back. It was hard to tell if the ceiling overhead was spinning due to his hard landing or the indescribably vile smell lingering in his nasal passages. The smell would not go away and his nausea grew until he had to roll onto one side and vomit. Two pairs of hands pulled him away from the puke and helped him to his feet. A skin of water was pressed into his hands and he rinsed his mouth and face, huffing like an engine, snot running freely with the water as his traumatized nose tried to recover from whatever it had just encountered.

“What was that?” Cassian asked, taking the water skin back.

“I don’t know,” Adalai said, scrubbing his face with the hem of his doublet and breathing deeply of its sweaty musk. Compared to what he just experienced it was downright pleasant. “I’ve never smelled anything like that in my life.”

Verina rubbed his back gently, watching him with obvious concern. “Does it smell like the death of nations?”

He wiped his mouth once more with the back of his gloved hand and snorted clean air back into his nostrils. “Never smelled that but there’s worse ways to describe it. Why?”

“The Linnorm says that’s what the pearls smell like.”

“Do they smell that way to you?”

Cassian shimmied up to the one Adalai had just smelled, took a light breath from several inches away, another with his nose right next to it, then dropped to the ground. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Wonderful.” Adalai turned and spat on the ground, trying to get rid of a strange taste lingering in the back of his throat. No luck. “Well, I suppose I don’t have to wonder what eating a dragon did to me anymore. Hardly seems like an equal trade given not even the Benthic are willing to keep dragon eaters around, even if they lock them in jail.”

“You’ll live,” Cassian said. He fished some kind of dried fruit out of his pack and handed it over. “If nothing else we’re all in that boat, too.”

The fruit had a subtle, sweet flavor that reminded Adalai of dates, although he couldn’t be sure that’s what it was. After repeated trips through the ocean it wasn’t exactly dry anymore, either. It still beat the scummy taste Adalai had at the moment. He chewed it for a few seconds then swallowed, nodding his appreciation. “So as I see it we’ve got two problems. First, I don’t think we can move those pearls without the people they’re growing on hurting them. Second, the pearls themselves are bad for anyone around them. That includes us. I don’t think it’s healthy for us to stay around them.”

“Third problem,” Cassian added. “The pearls are all connected somehow. When you pulled that one out of the coral all the people under it in the cavern started moving.”

Adalai grimaced. “You sure?”

“I passed two thrashing around on my way here.”

“Another one for me,” Marta added.

“It can’t be a coincidence that these things are growing pearls and the sea dragon also used them,” Cassian mused. “I wonder why they look so different.”

“Maybe they have different properties when grown on Benthic as opposed to humans,” Marta said.

Verina glanced over to one side, nodded, and said, “We may be able to figure it out. The Linnorm says he’s found the thing the pearls are coming from.”

“Let’s not stand around yapping, then,” Cassian said. “We should act like any Benthic with the pearls felt it when you moved that one, just like the prisoners here. We need to get things done here before they show up to see what’s going on.”

Previous Chapter

Captain Trill showed many of the behaviors Cassian had learned to associate with the best bravos that came to the forge. She knew what she wanted and asked sharp, incisive questions to pry the information she wanted out of him. It was quite gross. Still, after an hour of work they’d figured out the three most likely locations for the sea dragon’s lair.

The captain mapped out the fastest underwater routes between them and announced they would leave for the first location the next day. With that taken care of Cassian asked the obvious question.

“Will you allow us to make any claims on the treasure?”

Trill made her burping laugh noise again. “You surprise me, Monsignor Ironhand. Most humans are interested in treasure but your fixation is remarkably single minded.”

“Perhaps the Benthic are just less concerned with such things than the average human,” Cassian said. “Though there is more to it than simple desire for profit in my case. We have a reputation to uphold. My employer requested we retrieve the cargo from his caravan and it won’t reflect well on us if we come back empty handed.”

“Is that so.” Trill had developed a habit of staring at him whenever he said more than one or two sentences. This was no exception. The fronds and spines that seemed to do most of her emoting were all laid almost flat against her body, one of the clearest tells the Benthic gave. Unfortunately Cassian had only seen it as a sign of surprise or disbelief. “I suspect there is something about this you haven’t told us yet, monsignor.”

“Have you told us everything that your duties entail, captain?”

“I have not. However, if you were to conduct yourself in the way of most humans in the water and remain here until returned to your own people, the things I haven’t told you would pose you no danger. Stay with us as we travel and the same is true. If it turns out you have concealed dangers to me and mine or, worse, outright lied to us you will never breath air again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, captain.” One wouldn’t think the chill water of the Ursus Nest left room for further cold, yet ice was exactly what Cassian felt in his stomach at Trill’s threat. He had no reason to think Cazador posed a danger to the Benthic. Whether she would see it that way or not was another matter. He would simply have to wait and see.

If Cassian and the others had been forced to march along the sea floor again the trip to the first possible location of the dragon’s lair would have taken a full day’s walk and then some. To avoid that the Benthic brought out two large nets made of woven sea plants. Cassian didn’t recognize the strange orange vines but Adalai examined them and said the plants weren’t poisonous. It wasn’t clear whether that was a factor of his Arminger’s Gift or some stray bit of learning he’d picked up on his own travels but Cassian was willing to take the assessment at face value. Discussing Gifts in front of the Benthic wasn’t a wise tactic either way. So the four of them climbed in, two to a net, then he and Marta were forced to spend several minutes persuading Braxton to remain behind. While Cassian thought it spoke well of the man that he made the offer to accompany them the reality was he didn’t want the Hexton man to there. Not only was he a landed nobleman of a foreign nation, which raised all kinds of issues Cassian wasn’t prepared to deal with, his attachment to Marta created a host of additional complications they weren’t equipped to deal with. Marta herself also seemed relieved that her baron was remaining behind. He was grateful for that element, at least.

So, with the baron remaining behind, the Benthic took to the seas and dragged the humans along behind them, catching a southward current that allowed them to reverse the previous day’s trip from the Drownway in less than an hour. They arrived close to high tide, which allowed the Benthic to swim through one of the low lying areas with only a minimal amount of squeezing. All the water made it more difficult than Cassian expected to recognize what part of the path they were crossing and, as a result, he wasn’t sure whether they were close to the place they’d originally met the dragon or not. It had looked like their course would go somewhere further west when they discussed it on Trill’s map. He’d just have to trust that was accurate if he got separated from the others.

Once they were over the Drownway their Benthic minders were much more careful about how they moved. Trill had asked for three volunteers for this little expedition, taking the fourth spot for herself. She’d introduced the volunteers to them before they departed but it turned out Benthic names sounded like a bunch of weird noises to human ears and Cassian had been forced to think of them as Burp, Sputter and Groan. He began rethinking the somewhat flippant nature of those names when he saw how they navigated hostile waters. Trill may have been a captain but she clearly wasn’t content to leave all field duties to subordinates. She worked with Sputter to drag the net Cassian was riding in and, despite all the added weight and drag, the Benthic managed to move about the sea floor in a way Cassian could only describe as wraith like. A Benthic in the water could explode forward as fast or faster than a human sprinter. At the same time, with their long, sinuous bodies they could contort themselves around obstacles as easily as the fluid they inhabited. Indeed, they seemed able to move through the drifting plant leaves or reaching limbs of anemones without causing any disturbance. On occasion Cassian wondered if they had actually transformed into water themselves.

Given the incredible stealth shown by their escorts, it was no surprise that he wasn’t able to see any other Benthic during their trip. The Tidallias Benthic were no doubt just as stealthy as Trill and her soldiers. They did see the occasional school of fish and, once, as they passed over a particularly deep trench that led further out into the open ocean, a massive shadow below that looked something like a whale. Trill had instructed her human passengers not to speak during the trip so Cassian wasn’t able to ask what it was. Truthfully the creature’s appearance was menacing enough he didn’t feel like making any noise, warned or not. Whatever it was it didn’t seem to take any notice of them and it was far too large to follow them back into shallower waters anyway.

Or so he hoped.

After another hour to hour and a half of travel from the Drownway they arrived at a shallow, sandy island covered in tall, stringy grass. Trill theorized that the dragon might have taken over the island and buried most of its treasure, a habit she claimed it would have learned from humans in the Gulf. Cassian had argued against that, both because he didn’t know anyone who would bury money for any reason and because the dragon had no legs, which meant it would have to get its enslaved Benthic to do the burying. Unless the creature enjoyed the taste of sand. Trill seemed to think it could have used its power to manipulate water to help bury the treasure somehow, that was apparently how the Benthic carved their fortresses on the sea floor, and insisted they investigate the island.

So investigate they did. After twenty minutes Adalai was ready to give up. There was no sign of anything solid on the island, just loose dirt and waving grass. In spite of that Cassian insisted they comb the entire island, confirming there was nothing buried just below the surface of the dirt. Once they had finished with that they’d been above the water for nearly an hour. The length of the time they’d spent there without a wrathful visitor, combined with the lack of any guards, traps, or treasure was enough for Trill to agree the the island was most likely not the dragon’s lair.

Their next stop was a low, rocky prominence that rose far out of the sea floor that, by the time they visited, rose a few dozen feet out of the water. The tide was starting to go back out but, based on the markings along the stone, Cassian guessed the rocky peak was at least ten feet above the waves even at high tide, which he thought made it a strange place for a sea dragon to store its treasure. On the other hand, it wasn’t an easy place for any sea creature to get up to and the rocky surface would make it difficult for land dwellers to approach without endangering their boat so it made sense if being hard to reach was the point. Once they looked around the surface they discovered a wide tunnel leading back down into the rock. Verina doubled back into the ocean and let Trill know they thought they’d found the lair then the four humans started the perilous trek down into the rock.

It proved to be more of a slide. The tunnel slope started off fairly gentle but quickly pointed down at a thirty to forty degree angle, spiraling around the inside of the rock for several dozen feet. The stone was worn smooth by water that constantly trickled down from the mouth and it proved impossible for any of them to remain standing on the slick, angled surface. After a few bruising falls they all sat down on the stone and let their weight pull them on towards the bottom. Cassian tried to picture fighting the sea dragon in a place like this and shuddered. By the time they reached the bottom they were moving so quickly Cassian had to use his Gift on his breastplate to drag himself to a stop before striking the wall at the end of the tunnel. He had just enough time to brace himself there before Marta came down whizzing around the bend. He caught her with one arm, bracing himself as best he could with his other, and managed to stop her before either one of them got more than a few bruises. He did the same for Verina and Adalai.

“Wonderful,” Adalai muttered once they were all situated at the bottom of the tunnel. “Back in the dark.”

“The tunnel turns hard right here,” Cassian said. He went a few paces down it and knelt. “Looks like there’s an underwater cavern here. The ceiling comes down to the waterline but I think I see some light filtering through from the other side.”

“Those eyes of yours must have gotten a lot better than ours,” Adalai said. “I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black down here, you’d think any light would stand out.”

“We haven’t seen the Linnorm for a while, Verina,” Cassian said. “Is he still out there?”

“Yes,” she said. “Be glad you haven’t seen him, signore. If he had manifested himself while we were underwater we’d all quickly boil alive.”

“Not ideal, I agree. Can he go and see what’s on the other side of the cavern?”

“He’s just returned.” Verina looked away for a moment then said, “The ceiling of the cavern rises out of the water again not far from here. It’s lined with unusual coral and pearls, the pearls are giving off a strange, dim light. There’s two Benthic on guard just past the lowest point in the ceiling, armed with the same kind of spears the dragon’s other thralls were using. The Linnorm can’t tell if they’re still under the dragon’s influence but they do have pearls in their foreheads. Speaking of boiling water, do you want him to deal with those two?”

“Too noisy,” Adalai said. “If there are any more Benthic on the far side of the cavern they’ll hear the steam explosion the Linnorm manifesting will cause.”

Marta patted her shield, which the Benthic had returned with their other weapons that morning. “I can create a perfectly circular shield so long as I’m inside it. If we can get close enough to them before they realize we’re there I can trap them and ensure they can’t get away. It takes some concentration, though, so I’ll need someone who can actually deal with them.”

“So long as water doesn’t interfere with the Ironhand’s gift that shouldn’t be too hard,” Adalai said, giving Cassian a meaningful look.

“It doesn’t.” Cassian chewed on his lip as he stared down into the water. “Verina, can the Linnorm see the bottom of this cavern?”

After a five second wait she said, “Yes. It’s beyond the limit of his reach but he can see it. Why?”

He was thinking about the huge shadow he’d seen earlier, although he didn’t want to admit to it. “I was just thinking blood in open water might not be a good idea. Still, it’s the best we have. We’ll go with Marta’s plan.”

It worked surprisingly well. Cassian watched the bleeding bodies of the enthralled Benthic sink into the depths, yanking his daggers free from their corpses with his Gift, beginning to wonder if everything was actually going too well. They were making their way along the sides of the cavern, Cassian’s plate armor and Marta’s chainmail making them far too heavy to swim, but other than that nothing had cropped up to impede their progress. Once the guards were gone they completed the circuit and found they could climb back onto dry land. There, amidst the glowing pearls and misshapen coral, were piles of shining coins, stacks of valuable fabrics and shelves of nicknacks that had to be worth a fair bit as well. Adalai wandered over towards the shelves, already pulling his gloves off. The two women sifted through the coins a bit, moving towards the back of the coral. Cassian found himself a good place to sit and kept his unnaturally keen eyes pointed towards the water. “See how far back this place goes,” he called to Marta. “Let me know if you find anything interesting. I’ll keep an eye out in case there’s more of those guys down there somewhere.”

“How long do you think we have to stay here until Trill is satisfied the dragon’s dead?” Adalai asked, picking up a highly decorated vase and turning it over in his hands.

“I have no idea. We’ll go and check with her in a few hours, I suppose.”

“Adalai?” Verina’s voice carried a strained, nervous tone. She’d stopped by a tall spire of coral and was staring at it intently. “Come look at this.”

He set the vase down, frowning. “Something wrong?”

“I think… I think this coral is growing on a person.”

Previous Chapter

When Adalai first suggested using the fact that they’d eaten a dragon to make imprisoning them unappealing to the Benthic Cassian thought it was a clever idea. As he mulled it over he came to like it more and more. There really was no reason to think the prisoners were lying when they said they hadn’t heard of Cazador. If the Benthic hadn’t captured his brother staying among them wasn’t going to do Cassian any good and he didn’t see the point in beating around the bush when they went to visit the captain.

So he brought up the dragon’s fate immediately.

When she heard it Captain Trill burst out laughing and her subordinates joined in.

In the strictest sense it wasn’t laughter. The fronds and fins along their bodies rippled and spasmed, expanding and contracting rhythmically in time with a strange burping sound. It conveyed much the same meaning as laughter, though.

Cassian belatedly realized how absurd his claim sounded. There were plenty of stories about people killing dragons in Nerona. However he couldn’t think of any tales where a dragon was slain by fewer than ten people. Usually there were entire companies of men involved.

“Killed a dragon, did you?” Trill asked when she recovered herself. “I suppose you’ve spoken to all four Kings at the Corners of Eternity to confirm its death?”

“Just three of them,” Adalai replied, a surprisingly bitter tone in his voice.

Trill’s head moved to look at him with a looping motion. She studied him with a strange intensity then asked, “Which three were those?”

Adalai matched her stare for stare. “All save the King of Dawn.”

“Your thoughts on the Lord of Folded Waters?”

“We’ve never met. First time in the ocean after all.”

“These are not joking matters, dry born.”

“I didn’t invoke the Guardians of Eternity, captain.”

“And I was very serious about the dragon,” Cassian added, shooting Adalai a meaningful look. He wasn’t sure why the other a man was suddenly so irate. It didn’t really matter, either. The important thing was to convince the Benthic to let them go so that they could get back to searching for Cazador. “Two or three days ago it attacked us with several dozen of your people in its thrall. We lured it into the tunnels where your guards found us. Once it was there we collapsed the ceiling on it, which was enough to kill it.”

“Is this true?” Braxton asked, the question directed to Marta. “You will swear to it on the name of Clan Towers?”

“It is, Baron Green,” Marta said, placing her right hand on her left shoulder and half bowing from the waist. “Once the dragon was dead its hunger overtook us and we devoured it.”

“Then it must be so,” Braxton said. He turned his attention to Trill. “I’ve never heard of anyone eating a sea or river dragon but it could very easily grant the ability to breath water.”

“That may be so,” Trill agreed. “But it is very convenient, don’t you think?”

“How so?” Cassian asked.

The Captain’s frills twitched and she turned her attention to him. “The Baron tells me you are trying to retrieve a caravan you believe was stolen by the Benthic, are you not?”

“We are,” Cassian said, well aware that he was suddenly on very shaky ground. “However we have no reason to suspect that you did so. Most likely the dragon stole the caravan to sate its lust for gold and treasure. The signs of Benthic involvement no doubt came from its thralls. What use do normal Benthic have for air breather’s treasure?”

“Very little,” Trill admitted. “Though many things created by the most Gifted of you are just as useful to us as to you. But while the things we value are different the way we act to acquire them is not.”

Cassian pulled a your face. “You think we’re lying about killing the dragon so you will let us go.”

The fronds on her head lowered until they were nearly flat against her head. “A Benthic might do so. Are humans any different?”

“Not at all,” Cassian said. “However it’s very easy to prove we aren’t lying because I can take you to the place where we killed the dragon.”

Trill nodded, an action that looked very unnatural with the way it set her entire serpentine body bobbling. “That is a start.” She pointed at Verina. “Can you lead me to the place where the dragon was killed?”

“No,” Verina replied. “Cassian was the only one who could see in the mines. Adalai may be able to navigate there by touch, his Gift tends that way, but I couldn’t.”

Cassian resisted the urge to glare at her. The Linnorm had done a great deal more of the navigation than he had, Verina’s nature spirit would have a much easier time getting back to through the mines than he would. The deception didn’t make a great deal of sense to him. Undercutting her in front of the Benthic made even less sense so he let Verina’s gambit stand. “Is there something wrong with me taking you there?”

“I was simply wondering if you would take us to the same place,” Trill said.

“A fair thing to wonder,” Adalai said. “But there may be an easier way for us to prove the dragon is dead. Not that we ate it, but that the dragon is dead.”

“What does that a matter?” Trill leaned close to him to ask the question. “The Benthic are not quick to suffer the presence of dragon eaters but a dragon slayer? Dangerous in their own right, to be sure. However, not much more dangerous than any other dry born once in the ocean’s embrace.”

“It enslaved a number of your people, didn’t it?” Adalai asked. “They’re free now. I would think we deserve some consideration for that.”

“I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood the situation,” Braxton said. “Not surprising, we’re dry born after all. See, the Benthic in the Gulf and the Benthic outside are essentially different and very hostile nations. The sea dragon spends – or spent – most of it’s time on the ocean side of things. Although it abducted Benthic from both sides, ocean Benthic were the vast majority of victims. Any Gulf Benthic in its thrall when the dragon died were likely taken prisoner by the ocean faction.”

“Eaten,” Trill corrected. “The Benthic Tidallais are not of our ways. There are no treaties between us and them nor are the Benthic as a whole as given to mercy as the dry born.”

“And that’s saying something given how rare it is among us,” Adalai muttered.

Cassian folded his arms then quickly reversed the motion, remembering Braxton’s warning about Trill recognizing human body language. Better to avoid anything seeming too hostile. “It seems you don’t believe we slew and ate a dragon, which I suppose I can understand. That being the case, why did you call us here? It can’t be just to discover how we can breathe water.”

“That is a significant part of it, dry born,” Trill said. “The more we understand about the ways you can survive here the better we can be prepared for you. However we also wanted to know what part of the arid lands the dragon was hunting in. The Tidallais tend to avoid its movements and our patrols must shift to match theirs.”

“All the more reason to confirm the dragon’s death don’t you think?” Adalai asked.

Once again Trill swiveled about, bobbing along with the chamber’s gentle waves. “The dragon is not dead.”

“But we can show you where the body was,” Marta protested. “Part of the body will still be there, won’t it? It was on the other side of the cave-in and we couldn’t get to it.”

“The Benthic likely ate it,” Verina said. From the tone of her voice it sounded like the Linnorm had looked and seen exactly that happen.

“And a cave-in does not prove the dragon is dead,” Trill added.

Adalai turned to the table-like rock in the middle of the room. “Have you discovered where the sea dragon makes its lair?”

Cassian followed his gaze and realized the table was cluttered with rocks that created a passable map of the Drownway and, presumably, the surrounding sea floor. Trill considered him with her fronds prickling and twitching. “We have places we think it may be.”

“Then we can go to its lair. No dragon could possibly abide intruders in its lair so if it doesn’t come to kill us then it must be dead.”

“That would prove it,” Trill said after a moment’s thought. “However I don’t have any reason to risk my guards on this wild scheme of yours.”

“You actually do,” Braxton said. “In fact, you have two of them. First, as Signore Carpathea pointed out, you have an obligation to find out if the sea dragon is dead or not. Second, dragons collect treasures. Much of what a dragon values isn’t as valuable to the Benthic but their hoards often have at least a few Artifacts, Talismans or other powerful magical items scattered about. You can’t afford to let those fall into Tidallais hands.”

Her fronds snapped flat again. “And for a few trinkets I should risk sending a dozen of my best guards across the arid lands into the currents of the Tidallais?”

Sensing opportunity Cassian stepped forward and swept off his hat in spite of the awkwardness of the water. “Captain, I think you misunderstand what my friend Adalai was saying. When he said we should go to the dragon’s lair he didn’t mean the Benthic. He meant us – four of Nerona’s finest bravos. There are many tasks too important to ignore yet too dangerous for civilized folk. These fall to our kind. Humble servants who risk ourselves in exchange for a few coins and the promise of glory. You wish for someone to descend into the dragon’s lair and confirm its death? Look no further.”
The Benthic captain watched his speech dispassionately and let the silence after he finished grow long. Eventually she said, “What was your name, dry born?”

“Cassian Ironhand, at your service.” He considered offering a bow but decided that might be laying it on a little thick.

“Do you realize you’re a prisoner here?”

“If I didn’t would I try so hard to change that fact?”

“I have no gold or glory to offer you.”

“I will settle for our freedom, captain.”

Trill was quiet a second longer then she turned to the table map and said, “Show me where you met the dragon. It may help us narrow down where its lair is.”

A wash of intense satisfaction swept over Cassian. For the first time since his brother went missing he felt like things were definitely going his way. He eagerly approached Trill’s map to begin discussing the details when Adalai stopped him. He brought the underwater speaking pearl in his hand up until it almost touched his lips. “Cassian.” Surprisingly his voice came out in a whisper. “You do realize that a dragon doesn’t kidnap people unless it thinks it can ransom them, right? I’m sorry to say that if the dragon robbed the caravan your brother is likely dead.”

Cassian matched the other man’s posture and replied, “Perhaps. Let us wait and see.”

Adalai made a noncommittal sound but moved out of his way. Cassian joined the Benthic at the table and tried to hide how Adalai’s words killed his positive mood. He was growing more and more worried that Adalai was right.