Again, it is not for me to say.
"I won't accept that," Jherek declared.
He pulled at the bracer, managing to get a finger down inside the tight fit along his arm. Even then he thought the bracer only allowed him to do that so he wouldn't hurt himself. As he continued to dig, the bracer turned liquid under his questing finger-for just a heartbeat-and he pulled through. The bracer flowed back together almost instantly and was solid once more.
You have no choice.
"I will always have a choice," Jherek said.
You came here. You are the one, the sapphire whale told him. You are the Taker's Bane. Every choice you make will be right for you and for your destiny. There is no wrong way for you to go. You have only to accept the power and responsibility that will be yours.
"And if I don't?"
That will be your choice, and it will be the right one.
Jherek looked around at the dead whale and the scavengers covering it. The birds grew bolder, hissing and crying out as they closed on him. He beat them away with the flat of his blade.
"I don't understand," Jherek said. "I won't accept anything without understanding it first."
You have accepted the bracer, and it has accepted you.
Jherek barely restrained his angry frustration. 'T'here was no acceptance," he claimed. "It attached itself to me."
If it had not been time, if you had not been right, that would not have happened. Only the One may wear Iridea's Tear.
Jherek held up his arm and the sunlight glinted off the rainbow bracer.
"Is this thing alive?" he asked.
No, but it will serve to help keep you living. It will shield you and be a weapon. As you become accustomed to it, you will find that you can shape it to fit your needs. Now be silent, for we must finish the Binding.
The sapphire whale lifted its true voice in song, an ululating chorus that echoed over the water. The other whales joined in and the prickly sensation of an approaching storm blanketed the area.
Questions flooded Jherek's frenzied mind, but before he could ask the first one, blinding pain flared along his left arm where the bracer touched him. Unable to stand, he dropped to his knees, certain that someone had set his arm on fire.
He howled in agony and crawled toward the edge of the whale's carcass, scaring birds from his path. As the song continued, he reached the edge of the corpse and thrust his arm into the seawater, sure the wound he was undoubtedly suffering would kill him-or cost him his arm at the very least.
After what seemed an interminable time, the pain lessened, then went away.
Jherek drew his arm from the water expecting it to be burned clear through the flesh down to the bone. Instead, his arm seemed perfectly healthy, as if nothing had ever happened. Even the multi-colored bracer was gone.
Not gone, the sapphire whale corrected. The Binding has been completed. You and Iridea's Tear will never be separated as long as life remains within you.
Still on his knees, the young sailor held his bare arm up for the whale to see. Water droplets clung to his skin.
Iridea's Tear will be your badge, Jherek Whalefriend. In time, you will come to be known by it. But there will be times that you won't want to be known at all. The Binding allows this to happen. Think of the bracer upon your arm.
Jherek didn't want to, but once the thought was in his mind he couldn't help remembering the image.
Crimson, scarlet, yellow, and pink strands erupted from his skin. The strands quickly wove themselves into the bracelet, again running from his wrist to his elbow, the iridescent surface showing no fractures or lines.
The bracer can be easily hidden again when you wish.
Jherek willed the bracer to go away, but it remained upon his arm.
There is much you have to learn, the sapphire whale said. We will take time to teach you until you are ready to become.
"Become what?" Jherek persisted.
That which you are destined to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
XVIII
8 Eleasias, the Year of the Gauntlet
"To me!"
Laaqueel heard Iakhovas's thundering battle cry over the din of war even as she twisted from the path of an attacking ixitxachitl. The malenti priestess swept the barbed net from her hip and threw it at her attacker as it spun gracefully around in the ocean.
The weighted net flared out and enveloped the ixitxachitl, sinking barbed hooks into the creature's flesh. It screamed in rage and pain. Even as the net tangled its wings, Laaqueel drove her trident deep into its body. The ixitxachitl shuddered through its death throes.
"Most Sacred One, let me be of assistance."
Turning, Laaqueel found one of the sahuagin warriors from the outer seas swimming toward her, his movements already registering on her lateral lines. Bleeding from several wounds inflicted by the ixitxachitl fangs, the sahuagin warrior offered her another net. Bits of flesh clung to the coral and steel barbs woven into the strands.
"I will strip the net from this one," the warrior offered. "King Iakhovas will have need of you. The demon rays are attempting to rally their forces."
Laaqueel accepted the net and swam for Iakhovas. She gazed around the ocean floor, studying the buildings that comprised the ixitxachitl community of Ilkanar. Ageadren was the closest ixitxachitl city, but Ilkanar was an outpost town. The tallest structure in the community was the temple, built of coral and stones by the locathah, merrow, and koalinth slaves the ixitxachitls kept.
Iakhovas stood at the forefront of the invading sahuagin forces, ripping apart his foes with trident and claws. Corpses littered the city, including ixitxachitls and the slaves who hadn't quickly chosen sides. Iakhovas's wrath was unforgiving. As the invading army rolled through the resistance put up by the demon rays, the slaves scattered in full revolt, driven before sahuagin who would kill them if they tried to flee.
The oceans' currents darkened with blood.
Even as she drifted down and took her place at Iakhovas's side, he glanced up at her. Gold gleamed in his eye socket.
"Ah, little malenti, come to join the celebration?" he said, holding a bloody chunk of dead ixitxachitl out to her.
"I came to fight at your side."
A cruel smile twisted his lips in both his human and sahuagin guises as they flickered back and forth in Laaqueel's vision.
"As you can see," he said, "there are many who believe in me these days-many ready to fight at my side. I searched for believers, little malenti, and they have found me."
Feeling the spongy surface below the layer of sand at her feet, Laaqueel drove her trident down. Blood spewed up and the ixitxachitl crouched in hiding there flapped in pain. The malenti priestess slit its belly with a talon and watched it swim away to die.
Sharks and sahuagin finned by overhead, chasing all that fled before them that weren't of their kind. It was a whirling maelstrom of slaughter, a true vision of sahuagin power and savagery the like of which Laaqueel had never seen before. By rights, by her heritage, she should have been in bliss-or in a blood frenzy as so many of her brethren were-but she wasn't.
"What about you, little malenti?" Iakhovas asked. "Why do you fight?"
"I live to serve you," she answered. Fear filled her as she gazed at him, knowing he had the power to see through her and the lies she told.
"But do you believe?" Iakhovas asked. "Do you believe in me, or do you fight only to save your own life?"
Laaqueel gazed around them, aware of the fighting taking place. Sahuagin invaded buildings on either side of the thoroughfare, yanking ixitxachitls out and putting them to death where they found them. The slaves died as well. There was no rescue.
Even though the temple stood in the city, very few ixitx-achitl priests stood against them. The sahuagin priestesses fought them spell for spell and emerged victorious even if they had to swim over the bodies of those who'd gone before them.