Previous Chapter

When Cassian left to go deal with the Benthic Adalai blocked him out of his mind. Gaining impressions from an object wasn’t normally difficult but nothing he’d seen in the dragon’s lair qualified as normal. He started with the obvious. Water was terrible at retaining impressions from people, it flowed past too quickly for anything to be left behind. Even when bottled and held by a single person for a long time the liquid itself was generally sterile, although the bottles that held it might pick up a ghost of intent. The water in the small depression was no different.

The ring of stone around it also lacked any traces of human purpose. The six empty spots for pearls were mundane, as far as he could tell, as were the seven spots occupied by the precious stones. It was only the pearls themselves that had the glimmer of human intent to them. What purpose the gems had he couldn’t determine, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Most jewelry didn’t have a purpose beyond decoration. He’d handled several rings, a few bracelets and a necklace and all had a vague sense of purpose but they weren’t like swords, which would freely tell him what kind of drills the previous owner favored or whether they fought with fear or bloodthirst in their hearts.

However there was one vague impression he got from handling the pearls. They didn’t want to be near one another. So, as he put them back down after examining them in turn, he changed the spacing so that there was an empty space between each rather than putting them back in the crescent moon shape. As he put the last pearl in its new space they suddenly lit up and the water briefly flickered. Then it turned reflective, showing Adalai his own face with a clarity he hadn’t seen in a mirror since he’d come to Nerona.

He wasn’t a fan of the way he’d changed since his first death. He’d never been one for a beard but the quality of razors in the southern marches was poor enough he’d given up shaving for his own health. But more than the facial hair it was the deep lines around his eyes and mouth that bothered him. The Kings at the Corners had sent him here three years ago but he looked like he’d aged a dozen instead. Annoyed at himself for focusing on such trivial matters, Adalai reached out and swiped his hand through the water to break the reflection.

When the tip of his finger connected with the tip of his reflection’s finger the world shifted.

With a stomach turning lurch Adalai felt as if he was suddenly falling upward, then sideways, then finally down into the water. Except the reflective pool was suddenly three times as wide as before. His head broke the surface and he caught a glimpse of a bottomless expanse full of drifting shadows and distant points of light. He thought he spotted seven of them, arranged like a crown, somewhere in the infinite distance.

Gravity continued to shift and he felt his feet catch on something. He fell sideways onto the ground, his feet hooked on the edge of a shallow puddle sloshing in a field of porous rocks. Confused, he scrambled to his feet. The landscape around him now had a dreamlike quality to it. He was definitely above ground as the sky overhead was full of twinkling stars but the rocks around him seemed to fade into mists just a dozen feet away.

Yet the mists were not so close as to obscure the three living beings seated or reclining around a massive slab of coral that grew in a low depression to his left. The pungent smell of seawater stung Adalai’s nostrils. He sneezed, the sound oddly rough and sharp in the cottony, slow moving atmosphere of the vision.

As if thinking it tore the veil away Adalai realized that was exactly what this was. The water in the lair was a scrying pool and he’d activated it. The question was why the pool had shown him this vision. More pressing, who were the three creatures by the coral? Whatever they were, it seemed like they were aware of him because two of them were getting to their feet, looking in his direction.

“Not quite a vision, is it?” Adalai muttered to himself, backing up a step and nearly tripping over the uneven rocky terrain. By the time he got his feet under him again he noticed something odd.

One of the three creatures watching him was a Benthic, which did not surprise him at that point. What was surprising was the other two, which were both human. One was wearing the brown robes of an Omenspeaker, the self proclaimed clergy that served the Kings at the Corners. The blue trim on his sleeves and collar marked him as serving the King of Stars. The other man was dressed in a rich tunic and hose, marking him as a wealthy and important man, if one who was very behind the times in terms of fashion.

Cassian would not have approved.

“Who are you?” The unfashionable man demanded, his hand coming to rest on the hilt of a broad bladed sword.

“Adalai Carpathea. Who are you?”

“Porphyrio del Torrence.”

Adalai’s stomach did a little flipflop when he heard the name. Ever since the Emperor of Lome had died fighting Old Lum the nation of Nerona had been without a unified government. The Torrence and Reniece lines both had claims to the throne but neither one had earned legitimacy from the Omenspeakers or the other nobles. A stray thought crossed his mind and he turned to the Benthic. “Does that make you Lum the First?”

“Lum is my name,” the Benthic replied, holding up one of the familiar speaking pearls, though it was smaller and dimmer than those he’d seen before.

“Not the First yet?” Adalai looked at the Omenspeaker. “What about you?”

The robed figure tilted his head up enough that he could see under its hood revealing not a face but a deep, almost endless expanse of stars.

Adalai sucked in a breath. “Don’t tell me I’ve died again.”

“Not at all,” the King of Stars replied, his voice surprisingly human compared to the last time they’d met. It was a mellow baritone that seemed to come from somewhere inside the hood. “You’ve wandered into a vision. Like all omens, visions fall under our jurisdiction so I am here. Although I have to admit this was not what I thought they would choose to show you given the opportunity.”

Adalai had heard the Kings ruled over prophecies as well as death although he wasn’t sure why that was the case. “So this wasn’t your idea?”

“No.”

“Then who’s was it?” He looked at Porphyrio and Lum. “Theirs?”

The human and Benthic leaders stared blankly at him, his question having no apparent effect on them. “You’ll have to forgive them,” the King said. “They are just shadows of what was, they cannot hear your words or even recognize your presence.”

“They just walked up and talked to me.”

“You arrived in the same way I did on this day. The questions they ask are those they asked of me when I came to solemnize their negotiations.”

Adalai glanced behind him and saw there was a huge number of stars reflected in the pool he’d just appeared out of. “Is that why you’re here?”

“If you are asking whether I can be here in your vision because I was here when the vision took place then yes, it certainly helped.”

He knelt down by the pool but didn’t see the circle or pearls from the dragon’s lair. “So did you make the scrying glass I came through? Or is this just the same place the dragon made its lair later on?”

“I can’t answer that.” The King of Stars knelt down by the water as well, rolled up his sleeves and plunged both hands into the starry pool. A tunnel downward appeared and Adalai caught a glimpse of himself under a ceiling of coral on the other end. Other branches of the tunnel curved away in other directions. “I can send you back to where you began. Or you could delve deeper into the visions, although I cannot say whether you will be able to return to the Nerona you know safely if you do. This is not a world made for mortals. When we cross it we do so at our own peril.”

“You can’t answer those questions.” Adalai tapped a finger against his chin, mulling that over. The King of Stars had answered him when he asked about the vision itself but gave ambiguous answers when asked about the people or mechanics behind the vision. Clearly there were certain things he could and could not say. “Why were you here in the first place? Aren’t the Kings at the Corners the overseers of mortality? You call our souls up into eternity, you don’t negotiate truces or care whether we keep our word to each other.”

“Both false,” Stars replied, turning his starry visage towards Adalai with what he took for an amused tone. “Beyond the borders of Eternity lies peace. If you are to pass into that blessed place then you must be prepared for peace. Many are the tasks that prepare you for such perfect peace and the keeping of an oath is not the least among them.”

“Cryptic as usual.” Adalai sighed and looked at Lum and Porphyrio as they returned to their starting place. The Omenspeaker and the King of Stars split apart, the man going with his companions as the King remained with his attention on the Arminger. It was disconcerting to watch. “Shouldn’t you go with them?”

“This isn’t the past, just a reflection of it. I have no particular need to play a part to satisfy them.” The King once again manifested as a man shaped silhouette filled with stars, his seven pointed crown gleaming. “Shouldn’t you return to yourself? They know you are here.”

Frustrated Adalai threw his hands wide, encompassing the veiling mists around them. “Who? There’s nothing here to see!”

“It would have been easier -” Stars paused, its crown bobbing in an unsettling pattern as the entity shook its head. “Nevermind.”

Adalai’s life had gotten much more eventful since his first untimely death but, even counting the sea dragon, he’d never seen anything that held a candle to the kind of power and presence the Kings at the Corners had when he passed through their Courts. Now here was one of those same beings clearly unable to do what it wished. His first thought was that it had something to do with the nature of the being itself. It was a creature of visions and omens so that was what it spoke about. Now Adalai wondered if it was being restrained by an outside force. How was that remotely possible?

“Do you -”

“If you’re not interested in the visions you should return to yourself, Adalai Carpathea.” Yet the King of Stars continued to ignore the three specters just beyond.

Almost as if it couldn’t bring itself to look at them. Was that the King’s choice or something else forced on it? With a sneaking suspicion Adalai moved past the King to the coral where the three others were seated. “You will grant us refuge in the Gulf,” Lum was saying. “No ship or army of Nerona will menace us and humans who trespass in our waters will be removed.”

“You would have to find a way to hold them for us,” del Torrence replied. “There is little call for us to regularly patrol the Gulf. It’s dangerous for ships and it would put us in the waters you seek to claim. Not to mention there’s very little in this compromise that favors us.”

“We will repel interlopers sent by the Matriarchs of the Deep,” Lum replied. “They are our enemies as much as yours. Few of your Gifts and fewer of your ships are suited to fighting them yet your people will feed the Matriarchs as well as ours. Give us a home here and we will keep them and the Mists in the Deep far from your shores.”

Startled, Adalai spun to look at the King of Stars, only to find that the entity had vanished. The fog had enveloped the place the King once stood. Adalai slowly turned a full circle, finding that the vapors had grown close at every point and from them came an inexplicable feeling of menace. The specters continued to discuss their treaty but Adalai ignored them. He had the feeling he’d worn out his welcome.

Which way had the scrying pool been in?

A thrumming sound echoed out of the mists, deadened by the fog but still clearly audible. Panic seized him and Adalai did a simple about face and sprinted straight forward. In the roiling vapor it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead and the pool took him by surprise. He stumbled in, smashing one shin on the edge of the pool, then found himself tumbling in freefall through the dimly lit, starry abyss once more.

This time there was no constellation of stars in the distance. Instead a much closer, larger shape loomed towards him, its silhouette like the one he’d seen in the deeps while travelling with Captain Trill that morning. It moved far faster than it should have for something of its size. Worse, it clearly sensed Adalai’s presence and headed directly towards him.

For an immeasurable moment Adalai thought it might catch up to him.

Then Cassian’s hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled his face up and out of the scrying pool. The Ironhand gave him a hard shake and he said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Startled by the abrupt transition, Adalai went limp with relief. Then his eye fell on the box he’d asked Cassian to look at earlier. The glass box Cassian insisted was empty but that Adali saw was full of roiling mists. “Cassian,” he said. “I think we have a problem.”

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.

Previous Chapter

Adalai flopped down next to a steam vent, enjoying the feeling of warmth for the first time in a day or so. “They really have thought of everything here.”

“You seem pretty relaxed given where we are,” Verina said, making herself comfortable next to him.

“The mines were worse. All that dark, not able to talk for hours? I’ll take this over that any time.” Adalai studied their leader, who was pacing back and forth and glaring at Marta and her Baron. “Sit down, Cassian. You’re tired and walking around isn’t a good way to warm up anyway. Not when we have our very own slice of volcanic activity.”

Cassian turned his ugly stare towards them but Adalai refused to acknowledge it. Finally his shoulders slumped and he walked over to the vent. As he took his seat there grumbled, “We’re wasting time.”

“Let her have her moment,” Adalai said. “We have to wait anyway.”

“Waiting won’t help us,” Cassian hissed. “There isn’t going to be any emissary from the Court in Torrence, they’re currently in the middle of a succession crisis. Fionni and a handful of the other major cities aren’t recognizing the new Prince. It could take months to a year to sort out. I don’t think the Court will have the time for us while a third of his subjects are in revolt.”

“We’re not waiting on the Court, we’re waiting on the Captain.” Adalai gestured towards the opening they’d entered through. “Remember what that patrol leader said? One of the Benthic captains is going to ask us about the sea dragon.”

“I… don’t see how that helps us.”

“Depends on how things shake out,” Adalai said. “But if all else fails we can just tell them we ate the sea dragon. You said yourself that paints a target on people’s backs and towns that don’t want a dragon attacking on a regular basis throw people like us out. I doubt the Benthic will be any different.”

Cassian’s eyebrows shot up and he nodded approvingly. “Not bad, not bad. You could have mentioned this before we get stuck waiting here but it’s a clever idea.”

“We were underwater at the time so I couldn’t bring it up. Either way it was worth coming here. Marta found her Baron. We needed to be sure your brother wasn’t here and this was the easiest way to be sure.” Adalai glanced at Marta. “What do you think of that ?”

“I’m kind of surprised she actually knew the Baron,” Cassian admitted. “I was expecting him to be her liege but not a personal acquaintance. But there they are, thick as thieves.”

“Think the Towers clan might be more important than she was letting on?” Verina asked.

“No idea,” Cassian said. “Hessex isn’t a place that concerns smiths or bravos in Fionni very often.”

“I’ve met the Heracleans, they’re Hexton mercenaries,” Adalai said. “Very down to earth people. I liked them a great deal and Marta’s not that different from them in dress or speech. They weren’t nobles by any stretch of the imagination. So if you’re thinking she might be a Baroness herself… I disagree.”

“So how does she know Baron Braxton Green?” Cassian mused.

“That you’d have to ask them,” Adalai said.

“Is this important?” Venina asked. “There has to be something more important that we should be focusing on right now.”

“According to Signore Carpathea waiting for the Benthic captain to show up and ask us about the dragon is the best thing we can do right now,” Cassian said. He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back to look at the ceiling. “Do either of you see that?”

Adalai looked up at the ceiling but it just looked like plain reddish brown stone. “What?”

“If you don’t see anything I wouldn’t worry about it.” Adalai and Verina shared an annoyed look over top of his head. “If I were you two I’d try to figure out what ways I’ve changed since that thing with the dragon. Something tells me it’s more than what we’ve seen so far.”

“I would keep taking stock of it, too,” Adalai added. “It may take time for new abilities to settle and show themselves.”

“What makes you think that?” Verina asked.

He considered explaining that it took nearly four months for him to successfully use his Arminger’s Gift after the King of Dreams gave it to him. He hadn’t ever told that story to anyone. “I’m just saying that I haven’t noticed anything new except for the water breathing.” Adalai pointed towards the ceiling. “You think your seeing things might be one of your changes?”

“Possibly. I’ll need to find a chance to experiment but I think my Gift changed in some way as well as my lungs and eyes. Something for the two of you to think about.”

Adalai mulled that over. Armingers were a weird mix of abilities. They could glean information from objects, which was his specialty, and they could animate those objects to fulfill their purposes on their own. He had never been any good at that second one.

For six months after his arrival in Fionni Adalai lived with a mentor who had helped him understand the Arminger’s Gift. While Maestro Giorno wasn’t an Arminger himself his Symposium hosted a few of them from time to time. Adalai always envied the one who could make a broom sweep the floor on its own. It seemed like such a useful trick.

Unfortunately the animation of objects was never something he’d figured out. Sometimes he could tell what a man had eaten before throwing on the clothes he died in. Once he realized a waitress loved the drunkard in her tavern by picking up her serving tray. But animating that tray to serve drinks on it’s own? Impossible.

Perhaps that had changed now. He’d been told one of the simplest animation tricks an Arminger could do was making a pair of boots march on their own. However after an hour of tinkering with his own footwear he was nowhere closer to doing that than he was when he received the Gift. He was just starting to think about trying something different when Marta interrupted him.

She was alone when she rejoined their little group. Cassian immediately stopped tinkering with his armor and asked her, “What happened to your Baron?”

“He has some kind of direct line to the Benthic Captain.” Marta sat down next to Verina. “It seems he’s been acting as the lead prisoner for the last few months, serving as the warden and chief barrister all in one. Most people here don’t want to spend any more time in Benthic waters then we do and they’ll be happy if they can just get back to dry land safely. So Braxton has done his best to keep the peace. He didn’t know about the war brewing in Torrence so he initially thought most of the prisoners would be able to leave in a few weeks. If he’d known it would take so long he might have done otherwise.”

“Why doesn’t he try to escape now that he knows?” Adalai asked.

“He’s given his parole to the Benthic ,” Marta said. “To break it would tarnish his good name.”

“Reasonable,” Cassian said, much to Adalai’s surprise. “Did he say what brought him out here in the first place?”

“He said he was going to Renicie to deal with a pigheaded merchant.” Marta shrugged. “I hope that’s a saying that means something beyond the obvious in Nerona. Otherwise I’d have to say Braxton has become much more reckless than he was in the past.”

“How so?” Verina asked.

“Taking the Drownway just to speak to a merchant is wildly irresponsible based on what I’ve seen. Even ignoring all this,” Marta waved at the underwater fortress surrounding them, “the other hazards I’ve seen so far are nothing trifling. It’s not the kind of risk he’s fond of. He ran off to talk to the guard captain before I could ask him why he took it.”

“Because there’s only one pigheaded merchant in Nerona,” Adalai said. “Grigori Borgia, the head of House Borgia and one of the most powerful and least trustworthy men in Renicie.”

“Surely there’s more than one pigheaded merchant in all of Nerona,” Marta said.

“Only one who’s House uses a boar’s head on its coat of arms.” Adalai shot a glance over at the only native in the group. “You’re the resident expert here, Cassian, surely you’ve heard him called that before?”

“I never expected to spend much time outside Fionni,” he said. “Much less go all the way to Renicie. At least, not until a couple of weeks ago. I’m afraid the pet names of the wealthy and powerful in that city aren’t something I had time to learn.”

“No, of course not,” Verina said. “The Slavs aren’t natives to any place in particular anymore but I lived in Torrence’s territory most of my life and I’d never heard of him either.”

Adalai frowned, various small details swirling through his mind. Cassian clicked his tongue. “Well, Adalai, what is it? When you make that face it means you’ve some idea trying to work its way out.”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “If I’m remotely close with this idea it’s not important to what we’re trying to do.”

“Maybe you could let us in on the secret so we could decide for ourselves,” Marta said.

“I would have to get some answers from Baron Braxton before I’d be ready to share my thoughts with someone else.”

“I’d be happy to answer what I can.” Adalai swung his head around a hundred and eighty degrees so he could see the man in question, who stood near the middle of the cavern, holding a cluster of lumpy objects in one hand. “Before I can do that I’m afraid I have to ask you to come with me. Captain Trill wants to meet you.”

“This is the Benthic commander I’ve heard so much about?” Cassian asked.

“The same,” Baron Braxton said. He held out a handful of pale blue pearls. “I know one of you can speak underwater but the rest of you will need one of these.”

Cassian got up and took one, eyeing it with obvious suspicion. “We don’t have to put these in our foreheads, do we?”

“Just holding it in your hand is usually enough,” Braxton said with a hint of bemusement.

Marta and Adalai each took one as well. Adalai felt a cool sensation wash over his neck and the base of his skull. “Do I sound any different?”

Verina shook her head. “Just as raspy as always.”

“Wonderful.” Adalai tried to read some impressions off of the pearl, on the off chance it was human made. To his surprise he got the sensation of distant music. “These are Artifacts.”

“They are,” Braxton said, surprised. “As I understand it they were created somewhere in Torrence and both sides keep some on hand for these kinds of situations. How could you tell?”

“It’s what I do.”

As it turned out there was a back door to the cavern. Or perhaps it was the front door. Either way, it led up into Ursus Nest, into flooded parts of the mountain containing more and more Benthic. Along the way Braxton tried to give them an idea what to expect.

“Captain Trill deals with humans on a daily basis. Has for years. She’s not exactly good at reading our tone of voice or expressions but she can do it. Try not to give the wrong impression.”

“Any advice for how we’d best handle them?” Cassian asked.

“I don’t see them every day and I haven’t been here for years,” Braxton said. “But there is one thing – there are many more female Benthic than male. I don’t know why. But it results in some strange customs. Trill is female but she’s not a Lady, if that makes any sense. There’s a lot of Benthic females like that, it seems.”

“So what?” Adalai asked, struggling to keep his balance and match Braxton’s pace in the boyant water. “Are you just telling us to be polite?”

“I think that would offend her most,” Braxton said. “Best you just talk to her like she was a man.”

“Lovely, ” Cassian said. Whatever function of the pearls transmitted the sound through water so they could be understood apparently didn’t regulate volume. His voice had the tone of someone speaking under his breath but it came out in a normal speaking volume. Several pairs of curious eyes turned to stare at him for a moment.

The Benthic’s stares didn’t seem to bother Cassian but they gave Adalai an uncomfortable feeling. Maybe it was the blank eyes. Maybe it was the sheer number of them. Adalai guessed there were at least a hundred armed Benthic moving around the main chamber they passed through. None seemed surprised at the sight of five humans passing through. He still felt very out of place.

Most of the caves and chambers they’d seen so far were made of very natural looking stone. The captain’s chamber, located at the back of the main cavern, was the first one they’d seen that looked man made. Or Benthic made as the case may be.

All six sides of the room were flat and smooth except for a stone protrusion serving as a table and a sconce on each wall holding a glowing anemone. There were four Benthic in the room. Adalai guessed the captain was the one wearing bright green armor with a sash that looked like it was made of some kind of plant.

Sure enough, that was the one Braxton addressed. “Captain Trill, these are the four I told you about.”

Adalai didn’t know enough about Benthic to tell them apart. This could be the guard who found them at the mine exit for all he knew. But when she looked hard at him he felt something strange wash over him, different from the attention of other Benthic.

“How strange,” Trill said, her voice higher pitched than Adalai expected. “They are breathing the sea. Very different than you, Braxton. How is it you four can breathe the ocean?”

They all looked at Cassian, who took a deep breath of seawater and said, “That is because we killed and ate the sea dragon.”

Previous Chapter

After spending the better part of a day in total darkness Adalai was overjoyed to find himself in natural light once more, no matter how distant the source. The arrival at half a dozen armed Benthic did little to dampen his mood. The natural difficulty of moving through water did make drawing his weapons harder than normal and he omitted his usual flourish as he leveled their points at the undersea denizens but for a brief moment he was optimistic about their ability to deal with the creatures, out numbered or not.

Then the Benthic came to a stop floating ten feet overhead and Adalai realized the obvious. If it was just a question of martial skill they might have had a chance. However the Benthic were built for the water and in it they had the luxury of fighting in all three dimensions. Land bound bravos didn’t stand a chance.

One of the Benthic lifted up its spear and a voice echoed over them. “Dry born souls,” the creature said in rich, feminine tones. “The Gulf of Lum is closed to you. Is there not a treaty between our people and yours, signed by Lum the First and Porphyrio del Torrence? The arid land is pledged to the sons of men and the sinking land to the Benthic Stellaris. You have no place here.”

Adalai let his weapons drift down until the points were towards the sea floor. He’d never heard of a treaty with the Benthic. He did know that the City of Torrence was ruled by a family that shared its name. The Torrence family also had a claim to the throne in Lome, so perhaps one of them had come to an agreement with the Benthic at some point and signed it on behalf of all Nerona.

Unfortunately he was not in a position to explain that.

As soon as he realized that Adalai found himself staring impatiently at Verina, waiting for her to say something. While Cassian had already reached that epiphany and Marta didn’t lag too far behind the two of them, the Benthic themselves apparently weren’t waiting on an answer. “You will be held prisoner until such a time as the descendants of Torrence shall answer our summons and explain this injustice.”

“Wait!” Verina called finally realizing she was the only one who could communicate with the creature. “How long has there been any treaty between Nerona and the Benthic?”

The spokesperson for the guards drifted down until Cassian’s head was roughly equal with its waist. For the first time Adalai had the opportunity to take a good, hard look at a Benthic. To his surprise they did not look a much like the creatures they had seen the day before.

Their tails were long and thick but the edges were lined with delicate, almost frond like fins. Their upper bodies were more humanoid than Adalai had presumed. They had two arms in much the shape and place you might expect and their fingers, while decidedly webbed, were otherwise quite human.

The biggest difference was in their faces and heads. They had no hair, just more of the delicate fronds, on top of their heads and the eyes in front were small, beady and solid black with no visible pupils. The overall shape of the skull was more tear dropped than egg like. They had no discernible nose. And, of course all their exposed skin was covered in light blue-green scales.

The leader wasn’t showing much skin, though. She was covered, from neck to what Adalai thought were her hips, in what looked like the shell of a crab. It was presumably a form of armor. He wasn’t sure how effective it would be against steel weapons, though here under the ocean he suspected facing steel wasn’t something the Benthic did on a regular basis. She wore a helmet of the same material that covered the top and sides of her head but left most of her face visible.

Even without the helmet Adalai wasn’t sure how to read her expression. Like a fish, most of the Benthic’s skull bones were very close to the skin, leaving little flexibility in her face. The creature did have clear eyelids that flicked and fluttered and the fronds on her head twitched in ways that seemed to have nothing to do with the currents in the water. As she spoke to Verina the gills on her neck fluttered. Adalai wondered if that was how she spoke or if their speech was some kind of magic innate to the Benthic.

“How is it you speak on the waves, dry born?” The Benthic asked. “Even among the dry born those who can survive in the bosom of the ocean cannot speak without air.”

“I’m not sure,” Verina replied. “We fled into the tunnels behind us to escape a dragon that emerged from the ocean. Until we did that I had never put my whole self below water. I was as surprised to discover I could speak here as you were.”

At the mention of the sea dragon the Benthic leader motioned with her spear. Two of her underlings slipped past the human quartet into the tunnels with great speed. “You are fortunate to survive,” she said. “That creature has enslaved many of the Benthic Tidallais and bent them to its dark works. Does it still pursue you still?”

“No. When I last saw it the tunnels proved too narrow for it to proceed.”
For once Adalai was glad he couldn’t speak under water, it made clamping down on his laugh fairly simple. The Benthic leader just nodded. “It has always come over the arid walls in the past so I am not surprised.”

“You’re familiar with the dragon?”

“It has been a plague the Stellaris as well as the Tidallis for some eight cycles of the evening light.”

Verina perked up a bit. “Perhaps we could offer you some help with the dragon to compensate for our trespass in your territory? We came here because we were in great danger. Furthermore I have never heard of a treaty between you and the Prince of Torrence.”

“Yet it exists.” The two Benthic that had left earlier now returned. Adalai didn’t hear them say anything but from the way they stared at their leader while gesturing he got the feeling they were communicating somehow. After a few seconds of that the leader gestured down at the anemones. The other Benthic quickly began moving the glowing things out of the way. The lead Benthic motioned them out of the ring. “You will come with us.”

Verina gave a resigned nod. “If we must. Where are we going?”

The Benthic leader bobbed along beside them at head height but with her body trailing behind her, parallel to the sea floor. “You will be taken to the Nest of the Ursus. The dry born can be held there until the Court of Torrence takes custody of you.”

Cassian grabbed Verina’s arm and gestured to her. The Slavic woman gave him a blank look. “What?”

Cassian tried a number of things, like counting on his fingers, pointing upwards and finally clapping his hands in rhythmic fashion. Verina did her best. “Numbers? The sea? Applause? Clapping? Counting claps…” The idea visibly clicked into place. “Counting time. How long will it take for someone from Torrence to answer you?”

“It depends. In the time I have served the Descendants of Lum it has taken between eight and twenty days. However no one has come to us from the Court in the last four cycles. You may have to wait at Ursus Nest quite some time.”

Cassian immediately got upset, trying to tell Verina something with an increasingly frantic set of gestures. She ignored him, instead staring off into space for a long moment. “Tell me, do you know how many dry born have been found in this area in the last month? Or the last cycle.”

The Benthic leader gave her a sharp look. “I haven’t found any but there are many who patrol these waters just as there are many who guard the arid wall, as we do. Are you seeking someone who was lost?”

“Yes, some of us are.”

“Then you will be given the chance to look for them at the Nest. I can tell you no more.”

Cassian calmed down some after he heard that but he still didn’t look very happy about it. Although he lacked the other man’s personal stakes in the matter Adalai was sympathetic. Hopefully they’d reach the Nest quickly. He also wanted out of the water as fast as possible. It was cold, dark and the boyancy made every movement three times more difficult than it needed to be. Frankly, he didn’t know why anyone deliberately trespassed on Benthic territory.

The walk from the exit of the mines to the Ursus Nest was hard to judge, what with the lack of sun from above and the lack of watches in Nerona but Adalai guessed it took them almost two hours. By the end of it even the Benthic were visibly frustrated with their pace. It had to be nice having the option to swim freely over any obstacle in their way. Adalai was tempted to try it himself once but as he started testing how much upward motion he could create using his arms the guard leader said, “Stay on the sea floor. The currents here are strong. Few humans have the strength to swim against them. Even if you were one of them you’d do better to conserve your strength for the journey.”

So they walked. The sea floor proved very beautiful. There were plenty of anemones littering the sea floor, most casting a dim light like those they’d seen by the mine. The mix of pale blue, green and yellow light gave the ocean an unearthly appearance. The leafy and frondy sea plants that sprouted among them cast odd and haunting shadows. The silhouette of fish darted among them but didn’t approach. They seemed as wary of Benthic as rabbits were of humans.

Ursus Nest itself was a sight as well. Adalai had been expecting coral, as it was something sturdy and relatively easy to shape underwater. If you had the time to direct its growth, at least. However Ursus Nest proved to be an enormous cave complex that looked like it had been carved out of a spur of rock. It towered almost forty feet off the sea bed. It was a halfmoon shape with the bottom pointed towards them. The sides tapered slightly towards the top and were riddled with openings. A constant stream of Benthic were coming in and out of it.

Their escorts brought them in through a lower entrance. Instead of going up into the main spur of rock the entrance sloped down into a large cavern. They stopped at the entrance, which had an odd distortion across it. “You will stay here,” the Benthic lender announced. “The captain may wish to question you about the dragon but that may not happen some time. You will be fed meals that have proven compatible with humans.”

Verina nodded and said, “Of course. Are all the humans the Benthic capture held here?”

“Only those captured by the Stellaris. Enter now.”

There wasn’t much to do but cross the distortion. It proved to be little more them a sideways surface to the ocean. On the other side was breathable air, dim lighting provided by anemones is shallow pools scattered about and maybe a dozen people scattered about a cavern some fifty or sixty feet in diameter. The air was damp and fishy but very breathable. Adalai indulged in a few deep breaths before he took stock of the rest of the situation.

Naturally, Cassian was already marching through the cavern looking people over. “Is there a Cazador Clayheart here? Or anyone who traveled here with him?”

“Sorry, friend,” said a big man with particularly long hair and beard growth. “The name isn’t familar.”

“Is there any other place the Barthic keep prisoners?”

“If you try to escape they put you somewhere else,” the bearded man replied. “If he got here before me he could have wound up there before I saw him. But I’ve been here a good six mouths, maybe more. It’s hard to keep track down here.”

Marta paused in the middle of wringing out her kerchief. “No. It’s been longer than that. Braxton, is that you?”

The bearded man straightened up in surprise. “Marta Towers?”

Previous Chapter

It turned out they could all breathe water, presumably just one of the side effects of eating the sea dragon. That had its uses, the most obvious being salvation from sufication. It also made it possible for them to explore the flooded shaft for as long as it took to get back to the surface.

Marta was skeptical about abandoning their digging efforts but the air in the tunnel was already growing poor. The roof hadn’t caved in again but it was looking more and more unstable by the minute. Ultimately, Cassian made the decision to abandon the attempt to dig out and chose to swim, both because of the risk of a cave-in and because of the air situation.

Convincing the others to go along with this idea wasn’t easy. Even after they’d all climbed down the rope and stuck their heads under the water to confirm they could all breathe water as easily as air there was still resistance to the idea. Adalai wondered if the abilities they’d gained would wear off, leaving them with no way to breathe underwater. In many cases Cassian would have considered that a fine thing to worry about. However any Neronan familiar with dragon stories knew that it wasn’t possible to undo the changes brought about by eating a dragon so easily.

So they went down the mineshaft with Cassian in the lead. Along the way they discovered a number of new things about their condition. While they could all breathe the water the only one of them that could speak to the others while submerged was Verina which made keeping eveyone together difficult. Doubly so as Cassian was the only one that could actually see.

Clearly they had all had a different reaction to eating the dragon’s corpse. Doubtless Marta’s scales reflected some kind of change in her but whatever it was it wasn’t constant. In the time it took them to climb down into the water the scales on her skin had entirely disappeared. Adalai showed no obvious changes, which didn’t mean much given the circumstances.

Since he was the one who could see Cassian navigated with Adalai and Verina holding onto his shoulders. Marta took the rear, holding Verina’s free hand. That way Verina could tell Cassian if Marta got seperated from her and the extra weight of Cassian and Marta’s metal armor was distributed equally and would hopefully keep them from being swept away by a sudden current.

For the most part it worked. The group kept together and they managed to reach the first horizontal shaft without incident. However once they were there Cassian kept getting distracted by odd glimmers on the wall. He tried to point them out to Verina but he couldn’t explain them to her and she apparently couldn’t see them. That suggested there was more to his own changes than just seeing in the dark. He’d have to look into it more once they were on dry ground again.

In spite of their ability to breathe not everything about travelling under the water was easy. The shafts and tunnels had surprising currents and eddies in them. They were frequently forced to crawl on hands and knees in single file to make it through the narrowest parts of the tunnels. When struggling to ascend or descend a vertical shaft they frequently got seperated and Cassian found his stamina flagging after spending five minutes dragging himself up and down a particularly twisty vertical shaft, trying to pull the group back together after they were seperated working their way around a corner.

Behind it all was a constant, numbing cold. The mines had not seen the sun since long before Old Lum drowned them. The water within them was just as cold as the ocean without. If Verina had not known where a pocket of air was located thanks to the Linnorm’s scouting they might have given in to despair.
As it was it took them the better part of an hour to get down two mineshafts, cross two tunnels, climb up to their destination tunnel and emerge into the air again. At least the air pocket proved breathable. It wasn’t much progress but it was something.

They’d arrived at an intersection of two tunnels and whoever had built the mine had enlarged the area to create a staging ground. A few crates of half rotted supplies, piles of rusting tools and heaps of stones lay scattered about. One passage was collapsed and the other three were flooded. However there must have been a small passage out somewhere in the ceiling because they could feel a cold breeze washing over them the moment they scrambled out of the water.

It wasn’t much but after the night’s march, the frantic battle with the dragon and the grueling swim through pitch black tunnels they were all exhausted. Cassian picked through the debris, piled up the least rotted bits of rope, baskets and crates then doused them in lantern oil and lit it with his flint. After ensuring the smoke was venting through some crack in the ceiling they all flopped down beside the fire to dry out. Cassian wound up drifting to sleep as the warmth worked its way into his bones.

He woke up to the sound of a man dying. A deep, rasping cough echoed through the tunnels and, as he looked around through bleary eyes, Cassian realized it was coming from Adalai. The other man had withdrawn to the collapsed end of the tunnel and was in the process of trying to regurgitate a lung. Cassian dragged himself into a sitting position. Verina had collected a few more crates and was feeling them to the fire one board at a time. Their eyes met and he asked, “What’s wrong with him?”

She tsked. “He’s a man. Do you really think he would tell me? He has to pretend he’s tough even though we can all tell he’s teetering on the brink of Eternity.”

Cassian snorted. “Of course. If he despised you he would tell you all about his scratchy throat so that the feeling would be mutual. At least we know he holds you in high regard.” He spotted Marta lying at the edge of the firelight and gestured to her. “Has she woken up yet?”

“No.” Verina gave the Hexton woman a concerned look. “Her arm looks like it’s healed already but it’s taken a lot out of her.”

“It’s got to be better than making the entire trip here with a broken arm.” He dragged himself to his feet and shook himself out, trying to drive the last vestiges of cold and damp out of his feet and legs. After flapping his limbs around some to warm them he crossed over to where Adalai was hunkered down.

The Arminger didn’t look like he was dying. He wasn’t flushed or sweaty, he just sat staring at the fire with a glossy look in his eyes, a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. He didn’t seem to notice Cassian’s approach until the other man spoke. “Did you catch a chill in the water, Adalai?”

He jerked as if prodded with a dagger and his eyes slid over to study the Ironhand for a long moment. “Cassian?”

“Who else?”

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Very cryptic but not at all helpful. “Are you sick, Adalai?”

His gaze wandered back to the fire. “No.”

Frustrated by the man’s obtuseness he plopped down next to him and said, “You don’t sound healthy, at any rate. Why are you sitting all the way over here? You’d do better to finish drying yourself out by the fire before we have to go back into the water later on.”

“Can’t.” Carpathia paused to lower his handkerchief and spit a wad of blood and phlegm onto the floor. “The smoke bothers me. I stayed as long as I could but I can’t. Not that close. Not in a place like this.”

Cassian frowned. That explaination did not really explain much. However it wasn’t really his place to pry into the lives and insecurities of the others. They were not really a company of bravos. They were just a handful of souls, joined together for the moment, trying to make it out of a bad situation. How one of them could be reduced to a coughing mess just by sleeping next to a campfire, a very common experience in Nerona, was not the most pressing concern. “Well, try to get some more sleep if you can. There’s not a lot left to burn and not much more left to eat. We’ll need to move on soon.”

Adalai nodded. “Has the Linnorm found a good place for us to head to next?”
“I haven’t asked yet. That is the next thing I need to look in to.”

As it turned out, the spirit had actually found two likely locations to head towards. Continuing in the direction they had been travelling would take them down below the water again but it was a fairly straight path. The Linnorm reported that, at the furthest reaches of its range the tunnel turned upwards again and may eventually return above ground. The surface was apparently only ten to fifteen feet overhead.

On the other hand, if they turned and headed to the left they would find a shaft leading down to a tunnel that exited into the Gulf only a short distance away.

“The Gulf will have more tides and currents than we’ve faced so far,” Adalai said. “It will be a lot easier to get separated out there.”

“But we know it will get us out of the mines,” Marta said. “Even if the other tunnel goes up there’s no telling if it will take us all the way out to the surface. Even five feet of dirt is a lot to dig through safely. We’re three times that deep now and we don’t even have tools.”

Verina nodded. “More than that, we’re here to try and find the caravan and Cassian’s brother. If the dragon took them then it would have stashed them with the rest of its treasures.” She pointed out towards the Gulf. “It’s lair is doubtless out there somewhere. The creature was far to large to fit down here.”

“What if it had its Benthic thralls hide its treasure down here?” Adalai asked.

“Dragons wouldn’t risk losing their treasure just because its servants die,” Cassian said. “It would keep them in a protected place, sure, but one it could get to on its own.”

Marla sighed. “I was hoping we’d be done with the water soon.”

“Aren’t your people great seafarers?” Verina asked.

“The Hextons? Yes. Clan Towers? We prefer the land.”

The journey out to the Gulf wasn’t as time consuming as the previous leg of the trip. Cassian estimated it was half are hour, no more. When they emerged into open water the others were excited to find that even they had enough light to see by. However that was the end of the good news.

Not all the light they found there came from the sun filtering through the waves. A great deal of it came from a ring of sea anemones that grew around the tunnel exit and glowed with a soft blue light from deep within. Each plant was the size of a large dog and they were grouped unnaturally close together. It was impossible to pass through them without brushing against one of their stinging fronds.

But keeping them contained was very much the purpose of the anemones. That and illuminating them for the six armed Benthic that swept down from above, brandishing spears.

Previous Chapter

Cassian pulled himself upright, head swimming, and looked around. He was sitting in a mound of rubble. Dirt and stones slid off of him in small avalanches. The dust of the cave-in still hung in the air, obscuring the world around him. Something sticky clung to his hands.He looked down to see them covered in dark, blue gray blood. So thick and clinging was the substance that he could not see his own natural skin tone through it. He shoved himself to his feet, his mind already trying to assess the situation and figure out what needed to be done. The first step after any accident in the smithy was to check on everyone in the area.

He’d caused the cave-in deliberately but otherwise the basic idea was sound. So he licked his lips, spat out the grit and said, “Adalai? Verina, Marta can you hear me?”

No answer came and, after waiting for nearly a minute, Cassian started to pace around the cramped area still free of rubble. It was about fifteen feet from cave-in to cave-in. Not a lot of space for three people to disappear in yet there was no sign of them, just a wedge shaped puddle of the same goo he was covered in. He pivoted to look back at the spot he’d woken up. He’d been the closest to the collapse so in theory he should have been the only one under the rubble. Theory didn’t go for a whole lot at the moment.He started digging through the rubble. “Marta?” Moving the rubble proved much easier than he was expecting. “Adalai? Verina?”

He’d just reached out to move a rock the size of his head, the biggest piece he’d come across so far, when the rubble on the far left side of the corridor erupted and Verina got shakily to her feet, pulling Adalai along behind her.

“Finally!” Cassian kept digging but spared one eye to study the two of them. “Is he okay? How did you get stuck under there, I thought you were further back.”

The yaga shook her head to clear it then looked around aimlessly. “Cassian? Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” A soft gleam caught his eye a few steps ahead and he moved forward to dig it out.”Where are you ?”

“What are you, blind? I’m right here.” It wasn’t the right moment to lose his temper but he was starting to get close.

“Of course I’m blind, Cassian, if you have the time to complain about it you might try lighting the lantern instead.”

Cassian realized he hadn’t seen the lantern during his brief look around the corridor earlier. “It’s around here somewhere. I can see just fine.”

He uncovered Marta’s shoulder and carefully dragged her out of the rubble, taking care not to jostle her shield arm too much. Once she was free he discovered two surprising things. First, her arm no longer looked broken. Second, her shield seemed to glow with a strange, silvery light. He wondered if she had strained her Gift in some way there at the end and this was some indication of it.

“What are you talking about?” Verina demanded. “I can’t see anything here. The lantern must have gone out when the roof collapsed.”

Cassian turned Marta face up and discovered, to his shock, that her skin had taken on a scaled pattern much like that of the Benthic. He looked around frantically, a cold feeling settling in his stomach.

“Zalt,” he whispered. “We ate the dragon.”

A long moment passed before Verina whispered back. “What?”

“I can see in the dark, the dragon’s corpse isn’t here and I don’t know how we all wound up buried in rubble unless we were eating it and wound up eating our way under the rubble.”

“We ate it?” Verina sounded faint.

“That’s what happens when a dragon dies. Haven’t you heard any of the stories? It’s hunger has to go somewhere and when people kill the dragon it’s almost always moves into the killers. Then they eat it.”

Verina made a soft gagging sound. For a moment Cassian was worried she was trying to force herself to vomit up what she’d eaten, which clearly wasn’t going to work. Even if they hadn’t eaten the dragon’s whole body, just the head and neck that had been in reach on this side of the collapsed tunnel, it was still a volume of meat greater than the largest cow he’d ever laid eyes on. To say nothing of the creature’s bones. Yet their stomachs showed no signs of gorging on such a huge quantity of food. It seemed the dragon’s hunger did more than drive them to eat. It also helped them absorb what they took in. Hopefully the supernatural powers of consumption and digestion wouldn’t last forever, or the provisions they’d brought along were not going to last.

Verina was still distraught. Her eyes were tracking something not even Cassian’s dragon enhanced vision could see and her lips moved without producing sound. He hoped she was just speaking to the Great Linnorm. He decided to give her a moment.

Taking a rope he tied a rag to one end, lowered it into the flooded mineshaft and let it absorb some water. Then he took the rag and used it to sponge some of the dirt off of Marta and Adalai’s faces. As he’d hoped that got them coming back to wakefulness. He also located the lantern and took possession of it, quickly draining the oil into a flask and tucking them both away into his bag.

As he finished Adalai sat up, rubbing his head, saying, “What happened? Did we get the dragon?”

“That’s one way to put it.” Cassian gently helped Marta up and brought her over to sit with the rest of them.

“It’s dark,” she muttered. “Let me find the lantern.”

“No lantern,” Cassian said. “We’re currently trapped in a very small space with no connection to the outside air. What air we do have is going to turn bad soon and lighting a lantern won’t help. The way I see it we have three ways to get out of here and we need to decide which one we are going to try very quickly.”

“Three ways?” Adalai sounded surprised at that assessment. “We can try and dig our way out the way we came or we can try to dig past the old cave-in. What’s the third way?”

“We can swim,” Verina said. Clearly finished with whatever communing she had been doing, the yaga’s attention was now on the matter at hand. “The Linnorm has gone to see if the flooded shaft connects aboveground anywhere. Or at least leads back to a shaft above the waterline.”

“There’s no way of knowing whether we can breath the air on the other side of the sunken mines, if there is any,” Adalai pointed out.

“That’s true of digging out the old cave-in as well,” Marta replied.

“And the fresh cave-in is the most likely to collapse if we disturb it,” Cassian concluded. “None of these are particularly good options. Honestly, I’d like it if we didn’t have to do any of these things but if we stay still then we are doomed and I’m not prepared to face Eternity just yet. So we have to choose one.”

“One?” Adalai cocked his head in contemplation. “Why not two? That way we don’t lose time if one of them doesn’t work.”

“We don’t have enough room to dig both ways at once,” Verina pointed out. “We’d just wind up with a new wall of rubble between us and that would make things difficult if we find a way out and need to join up again.”

“We could throw anything we move down the flooded mineshaft,” Marta suggested.

“Sure,” Adalai said, “but I was thinking one of us could swim the flooded shaft and the rest could dig towards the entrance.”

“Let’s hold off on swimming until we know what the Linnorm finds,” Cassian said. “How far from you can he go, Verina?”

“It depends on a number of things but right now, about a hundred and fifty feet. He should return soon.”

So they took a few minutes to dig towards the entrance, struggling against waves of loose dirt and stone that trickled from the ceiling. Cassian had just called a halt after a secondary collapse brought tons of falling debris down on them, undoing almost all the progress they’d made when Verina reported the Linnorm was back.The spirit reported that it hadn’t seen any new exit from the mines via the submerged tunnels. It did discover a large network of tunnels leading in all directions. There were even a few places where the Linnorm said there was no water although Marta was quick to point out again that that didn’t mean breathable air. Cassian still felt it was worth taking the time to explore. It did lead to another question, though.

“I should go,” Verina insisted. “If I move around then the Linnorm will be able to scout further. It will also be easier to pull me up out of the mineshaft if I don’t find anything. I weigh much less than you.”

“I can see,” Cassian said. “That’s going to be much more important to getting around safely down there than anything else.”

“You can see?” Adalai asked. “Since when?”

“Since eating the dragon.” He’d explained what he thought happened to the others while they were digging but hadn’t gotten around to mentioning the changes he saw as a result.

“Eating a dragon makes you see in the dark?” Adalai shook his head in bewilderment. “That’s amazing. I know they’re incredibly dangerous and all but why don’t I hear about people hunting down and eating these things on a regular basis?”

“Because the power held in dragon flesh is intended to pass down to their hatchlings,” Verina said. “When it winds up in the hands of others the dragons that should have inherited it chase them down, kill them and devour them to get it back.”

“That’s pretty bad,” Adalai agreed.

‘”Worse, no one wants the people who have eaten dragons around,” Cassian said as he passed a rope around his waist. “Too much collateral damage results.”

“That’s understandable.” Adalai braced himself and started lowering Cassian down into the mineshaft.To his surprise, once he reached the water he found it to be surprisingly warm. Given that the waters of the Gulf tended towards the chilly side of things at that time of the year Cassian found that rather surprising. It was not the only surprise in store for him.He also found that his enhanced eyesight could easily see through the surface of the water and down to the bottom of the mineshaft, which he estimated was at least a hundred feet below. He spotted at least three side tunnels branching off in various directions. “Okay, Adalai, there’s a rock here I’m going to tie the rope to so it doesn’t get lost. Go ahead and anchor your end somewhere. I’ll call for you if I need pulled back up.”

“Got it. We’ll keep digging, then. If we find a way out then I’ll light the lantern. Stay here if you see it and I’ll check in every so often until you come back.”

It was as good a plan as anything. Once he had everything in place Cassian dove under the water, intending to dive down to the first tunnel and look down it before surfacing for air. However he hadn’t descended more than half the distance to the tunnel in question before he subconsciously took a breath, sucking water into his lungs. Then he scrambled upwards through the water, using his Gift to add bouyancy to his armor. Once he broke the surface he called out, “Adalai, Adalai! I can breathe the water!”