Mags, we're on the bottom, heading for a light, Cale projected.
Magadon made no response. Cale and Jak shared a look. The halfling shrugged.
Let's go, Cale said, and they set off, following the rope of shadows that bled from Weaveshear.
Cale saw that they were swimming above a wide furrow torn in the bottom of the sea by the floating city that had crashed into the ocean and rolled along the floor. He did not allow himself to imagine the terror the inhabitants must have felt as they hit the water.
Dark, Jak said. This was no small town. Look at the damage. Imagine the number of people.
Cale nodded. Sakkors was a graveyard for tens of thousands.
The bottom sloped upward as they swam, slightly at first, then more steeply. The light grew brighter with each stroke. They came to a ridge and... the sea floor fell away beneath them.
They stood at the top of a cliff so steep and smooth it looked like the sea floor had been sheared with a vorpal blade. At the bottom of the cliff, easily five hundred paces down, a mass of ruins spread beneath them. Broken buildings lay piled haphazardly on more broken buildings, one after another, until they formed a mountain of ruin. The heap reached a third of the way up the cliff face. Only underwater could such an unstable mass not collapse. The red glow emerged from somewhere within the pile of ruins, near the bottom.
Looking down the cliff face, Cale understood the geography. The smooth cliff must have once faced the sky, part of a massive chunk of mountain that had borne Sakkors through the sky. When the city crashed into the sea, the slab of earth upon which it had been built had come to a stop on its side and much of the city had poured off and slid downward to form a pile at its base.
For a few moments, neither Cale nor Jak said anything. The destruction was too big for comment. The red glow bathed the ruins, cast them in blood. Shadows poured from Cale's blade toward the bottom of the mountain of ruins, toward the red glow.
Jak swam out over the cliff, turned, and looked down.
There are caves carved into the cliff face, he said. Above the ruins.
The scrags' lair, Cale guessed.
Jak gave a start, peered downward.
Cale followed his gaze and saw what had drawn the little man's attention.
Far below them, perhaps a third of the way down the cliff face, three silhouettes knifed through the water. Cale could not see them clearly but the figures were too small for scrags. They swam rapidly, with the speed and undulating movement of something native to the depths.
Is that them? Jak asked.
It has to be, Cale said, but cursed himself for not casting a spell ahead of time that would have allowed him to see dweomers. He might have confirmed for himself that the three humanoids were the shapechanged slaadi and Riven. Now he could cast nothing because he could not give voice to his prayers.
But the darkness would still answer him. Controlling the shadows did not require him to speak. He needed only his will.
Ready yourself, he said to Jak. I'll move us there.
Jak nodded and Cale called upon the shadows. He first molded the darkness of the depths into simulacrums of himself that mirrored his motions. The images flickered about him, continuously changing positions around the real Cale.
Jak tried to follow their motions, failed, shook his head.
Focus on Azriim, Cale said. He will have the Weave Tap seed.
How will we know which is him? Jak asked.
Cale had no answer for that. They would not be able to mark the slaad's unusual eyes underwater.
We will have to improvise, little man.
Jak hefted his blades, nodded.
Cale looked down the cliff, picked his spot, and drew the darkness around them. With an effort of will, he moved them instantly from atop the cliff to the water beside the three forms.
The moment they materialized, the three forms recoiled and shouted a bubble trail. Cale marked Riven as the one-eyed aquatic elf, and the slaadi as the scaled, fanged, and clawed sea devils.
Riven, in the flesh of the aquatic elf, darted backward from the combat and jerked a pair of daggers from his belt. The assassin caught Cale's eye and shook his head as if to say, Not yet!
Cale ignored him, noted a thigh sheath of wands on one of the sahuagin, and knew that was Azriim. He lunged forward and stabbed Weaveshear at the slaad's chest. The surprised slaad responded quickly, darting out of the way of the stab and answering with a claw slash across Cale's exposed forearm. Trailing blood, Cale swung Weaveshear in a reverse slash that bit deeply into the slaad's side. Azriim screamed, bled, kicked, and swam backward away from Cale.
Dolgan gave a roar, audible even underwater, and tried to wrap his arms around Cale. Instead, he grappled a shadow image and it winked out of existence. The big slaad lashed out with a claw rake that struck another image, destroying it.
Jak appeared behind the big slaad and drove dagger and short sword into Dolgan's side. The slaad roared with pain, whirled around, and caught the little man with a backhand slash across the face. Blood poured from Dolgan's wound, trickled from Jak's cheek and lip.
Cale swam toward Azriim.
The slaad held his ground and glared at him around a forced, fang-filled smile.
You truly are proving to be inconvenient, Azriim said, and fired what should have been a bolt of energy from his hand. The water diffused the lightning into a globe that charged the water in a sphere all around the slaad. White light flared and the water sizzled. The discharge popped Cale's eardrums, caused his heart nearly to stop, and left him momentarily stunned. It appeared to have no effect on Azriim, and Riven had backed clear of its effect. A cloud of smoky bubbles raced surfaceward.
Before Cale could recover, Azriim pulled another wand from his thigh sheath and fired it at Cale. Cale could not get Weaveshear into place in time and a thin green beam struck him. Instantly a green glow formed around his body. Cale recognized it as the same type of glow he had seen on the slaadi's ship, the magic that had prevented him from shadow stepping through patches of darkness.
Cursing, Cale swam for the slaad, Weaveshear held high. Azriim swam backward, his form much more adept in the water than Cale's. The slaad easily kept the distance between them as he pulled his teleportation rod and worked its dials.
Enjoy the scrags, priest, Azriim said, and vanished.
Cale cursed aloud, and it came out as merely an inarticulate shout and a stream of bubbles. He turned back to Jak and saw the little man swimming a few strokes away. Riven and Dolgan were also gone.
I'm fine, Jak said, in answer to Cale's look. The halfling appeared to have suffered no wounds other than the scratch to his face. Jak, too, must have been clear of the effect of Azriim's spell. Strong whoreson, that slaad. What about you?
Fine, Cale answered. His ears tickled as the drums regenerated. But that is the last time we let those bastards escape us. Done?
Done, Jak answered. The little man looked past Cale toward the cliff face and his eyes went wide.
Cale whirled and saw a dozen scrags swimming out of the caves toward them. They probably smelled blood in the water.
Cale cursed. Glowing green with the effect of Azriim's wand, he knew he must look like a beacon to the trolls. He could not use the shadows to move them from place to place while Azriim's spell still enshrouded him. And neither he nor Jak could attempt to dispel the effect until they reached the surface. He touched Weaveshear's blade to the glow, hoping it would absorb the spell. It had no effect.
Move! Cale said.
They turned their backs to the trolls and swam as fast as they could downward, toward the ruins and the source of the red glow. Despite the spells that aided them underwater, Cale still felt that he was moving too slowly. He spared a glance back.
The trolls' powerful bodies undulated and the creatures cut through the water. Their fangs-many as long as a finger-jutted from their open mouths and promised Cale and Jak a painful, bloody end. Their thick-lidded, yellow eyes focused on Cale and Jak with the intensity that all predators regarded their prey.