"The council of mages has determined that levitation is not a viable alternative. The constant winds that assail the cliffs of Onara are simply too treacherous, and they cannot control the ascent long enough to reach the top…" Her voice trailed off as Laquatas flipped his legs off the table, transformed them back into a tail, and floated up from the chair.
"Go on," smiled Laquatas. "I'm sure you have more to report."
Simone scuttled back a step before continuing. "The mages say they have lost fully two dozen subjects in their trials, and they are hesitant to continue the experiments lest they severely deplete our forces."
"Is that all?" asked Laquatas, gliding toward the back of the room.
"N-no, sir," replied Simone, her voice quivering even more.
"I didn't think so," said Laquatas, smiling once again at the crab. "Please, tell me everything. I need to know."
"Your mages have also finished their research on the portals that have sealed us in the chasm," continued the crab. "They report that it is impossible to destroy the portals from inside the chasm, and that even if we had some way to escape, they would not have enough power to destroy the portal generators, even from the outside."
Laquatas flipped his tail violently, spinning around to face the chittering crab. "How am I to destroy an empire when 1 can barely get a frog out of this prison alive, let alone unleash my army on Mer City?" bellowed the mer as the silver-tipped horns on his head began to glow.
Simone tried to scuttle out the door, hut before she even got a claw on the latch, the water around her began to seethe and roil as the liquid's temperature rose sharply. The water around Simone reached a boil, and bubbles appeared all over her reddening shell. They floated up to the ceiling where they created a growing pocket of air. Simone turned to face the ambassador, her face contorted by the pain of being boiled alive. Before she could speak again, her heart burst from the heat, and her claws sagged.
Laquatas continued to boil the crab for several minutes, watching her body tumble in the heated water. Some of the heat made its way to the back of the room where the ambassador floated, but he had enjoyed saunas during his decadent days amongst the land walkers in Cabal City and knew his limits. He ended the spell long before he was in any danger.
The report finished and his anger soothed for the moment, the ambassador decided to return to his maps once again to look for some means of escape. As he turned, Laquatas noticed the torn map still on the floor near Burke, and his horns flashed again as the anger welled up at the incompetence surrounding him.
The lanky mer quelled his temper quickly, though, for he knew of no way to actually punish a creature that had no bones he could break or organs he could boil. So he simply picked up the map, intending to put it back himself. But as the ambassador turned toward the wall, he noticed that where there should have been a bare space, there was, in fact, a map.
"What is this?" asked Laquatas as he swam over to the wall. The map Burke had retrieved showed little more than a large, blackened-in representation of the chasm.
"Veza's map," sneered the ambassador. "Her little joke come back to haunt me again."
The black map had materialized within the barrier only a few days after his defeat, along with a message from the empress's pet mer, Veza. Laquatas had tried to turn her against Llawan, but in the end, the mer bitch had turned on Laquatas. This was her final barb: a blackened-in survey map of the trench with the words "Loqar's Folly" scrawled across the top. Laquatas had crumpled the map and tossed it into the comer of the room, vowing vengeance against Veza and her cephalid ruler.
Laquatas looked back at where Simone floated by the door. "You see this he said to Simone. "She is the one I should boil. She and her precious empress. The gall of that mermaid to help trap me here and then send me a featureless map as a present."
Laquatas ripped the map off the wall and floated over to show it to the dead crab.
"A picture of my prison, you see?" he said. "I squirm in this black hole like a tuna enveloped in squid's ink while they sit out there, in my throne room, and laugh at me."
Laquatas stared at the map as the anger welled up inside him again. Completely featureless, just like the huge prison cell he had been tricked into, the map was useless except to fuel his anger.
"Not like these other maps, no!" ranted the mer as he turned to survey the room. "These show me everything and nothing at the same time. They show me a prison that I can leave anytime I wish, for I have the power to escape by myself, just not the power to destroy the walls and unleash my army."
Turning back to Simone, Laquatas tossed the map onto the crab's still-hot shell.
"And what is a ruler without his army?" he asked jetting around the room and preaching to the walls. "I'll tell you-a dead ruler. So here I stay, a prisoner of my own making in a cold, black cell."
As the map lay on Simone's heated shell, an inky cloud began to rise, turning the water above the crab black. Irritated that the blasted map would not go away, Laquatas swam back over to rip it to shreds and be done with it once and for all. But as he swished his hand through the cloud to clear the water, Laquatas noticed that the black ink covering the map was liquefying from the heat and lifting off the velum, showing details underneath the inkblot.
The mer began to rub the map lightly to clean away the black area. Underneath was a complete topographical survey map of the chasm and the surrounding area, just as Veza had promised in her note. Whether by design or by accident, the empress's mer had given Laquatas a more detailed map of the trench than even his own squid engineers had been able to produce.
Laquatas scanned the survey lines closely. Much of the detail was lost on the mer, for he was no cartographer. But one feature-a system of underground canals marked on the inland portions of the map-he instantly recognized.
The mer empire had long used subterranean canals to spy upon and stage raids within the towns of the dry landers. Some of these water-filled canals went as far inland as the foothills of the Pardic Mountains. Laquatas had never seen the canals shown on Veza's map before. They must be long forgotten and rarely used, although it appeared they connected to the entire subterranean system. More importantly, one of the canals marked on Veza's map came quite close to the cliffs of Onara.
"Loqar's Folly?" muttered Laquatas. "I would call this Veza's Folly, for you have given me the key to my cell, you stupid girl. The key to my ultimate victory over you and your empress."
Turning to the door, the ambassador yelled, "Talbot!" The door opened, and a merman swam into the room. Not as tall as the former ambassador, and with horns and scales tinted a metallic greenish-blue instead of Laquatas's more regal silvery-blue, Talbot was, nevertheless, one of the few noble mermen left in the seas surrounding Otaria. He had come to the rebellion very early on and had risen quickly to sit at Laquatas's right hand.
"Yes, Lord Laquatas."
'Talbot," said Laquatas as he pointed at the canals on the map, "I believe your old friend Veza has given us a valuable gift-a permanent route out of this Norda-forsaken pit."
"Really?" said Talbot, cocking his head to look both at the map and at Laquatas. "That is very unlike her."
"I agree," said the mer, smiling. "And we shall definitely repay her for her many kindnesses as soon as we find a way to access the canals on this map. I want you to take the map and a team of squid engineers out to the cliffs of Onara to determine if we can open up a tunnel to the canals."
"Yes, my lord," replied Talbot as he took the map and rolled it up. "Shall I dispose of this refuse for you as well, sir?"
"Simone?" asked Laquatas. "Heavens no. We owe this fine subject our debt of gratitude. She has shown us the route to freedom. No. Simone will be my guest for dinner tonight as a reward for her loyal support."