"No!" Jherek screamed in disbelief.
Azure Dagger seemed to sail straight into the whirlpool's jaws.
Within seconds, the first of the ships and the sahuagin reached the eye of the whirlpool at the Great Gate and disappeared, thrown half a world away-for all anyone knew. The only thing the High Mages and Qos agreed on was that the Great Gate took all in it far from Seros.
Something shoved the young paladin from behind. Angry, he turned, only to find the golden sea wyrm floating there. It coiled and flexed, struggling against the whirlpool's pull. For the first time, he understood the creature's attraction to him; why it mysteriously followed him to Aglarond and back, and why it helped him rescue Sabyna from the drowned ones.
Azure Dagger plummeted toward the whirlpool's eye as Jherek reached for the sea wyrm and pulled himself up onto the creature's back. He slapped it on the neck gratefully and urged it forward. The sea wyrm darted forward like an arrow. Jherek ripped the necklace with the whirlpool gem from his neck and threw it away, feeling the pull of the gate at once.
"Jherek!"
Knowing the voice, the young paladin glanced ahead, spotting the bard atop the statue.
"I must know the end of the story," Pacys shouted.
Jherek hesitated for an instant as the sea wyrm closed the distance to the old bard. Doing what he planned was without question dangerous, but he knew Pacys was as driven by his part in the events as he was. He willed the bracer back into its resting form and reached for Pacys's hand.
Though the force of the contact must have almost ripped the bard's arm from his shoulder, Pacys didn't say a word. The old bard twisted himself expertly in the water until he sat behind Jherek.
The sea wyrm jerked suddenly.
Glancing back, Jherek saw that Khlinat had managed to grab the creature's tail. The dwarf held on fiercely.
"Leave him," the young paladin told the sea wyrm.
In response, the dragon-kin curled the dwarf protectively in its tail.
Jherek watched Azure Dagger plunge toward the whirlpool's eye. Two masts hung in broken shards, wrapped in sailcloth. The sea wyrm reached the outer edge of the whirlpool and they were sucked inside.
Sabyna gazed up in disbelief at the swirling wall of green-blue water that surrounded her. Azure Dagger stabbed straight down into the maelstrom. The roaring water made conversation impossible. The ship's mage thought she might be screaming, but she'd have never known.
She lost her footing on the deck as the caravel tilted forward even more. As she fell toward the prow, aware of the tangled rigging and the broken mast ahead, Sabyna angled her body and managed to seize the rigging with one hand. She swung under it and prayed that her fingers wouldn't be pulled off.
She was hit from behind, and when she spun to see what had happened, she found herself face to face with a pirate who'd been hanged in the rigging. The bloated face and protruding tongue let her know it was too late to cut him away.
The caravel hit the bottom of the whirlpool and the world went away.
Laying low along the sea wyrms neck, the old bard's arms wrapped tight around his waist and with Khlinat in tow, Jherek guided his mount through the swirling wall of water into the center of the whirlpool. For a moment they hung motionless in the raging roar of the ocean, then they fell toward the bottom of the whirlpool. The sea wyrm convulsed, then poked its head down.
Jherek locked his legs around his mount and leaned back, forcing himself to stay on its back through sheer willpower. They hit the bottom of the whirlpool, followed immediately by a moment of blackness, then crashed through a tumbling seascape.
Pirate ships lay scattered along the ocean floor, smashed, broken, and driven into the mud and sand. Ships crashed into the reef, became buried in broken coral strands, and hopelessly tangled in each others' rigging.
The sea wyrm flared its fins and angled its head, bringing them up from the steep dive only a few feet short of the ocean floor. It turned its head and twisted its body, rolling neatly around the coral reef, then it angled toward the surface.
Away from Myth Nantar's mythal, Jherek suddenly found he couldn't breathe without drowning. Though Pacys wore some kind of bracelet that allowed him to move underwater with ease, Khlinat was in the same shape as Jherek. Somehow the dragon-kin knew that.
Ahead, Azure Dagger and four other ships that survived the wild ride rose toward the surface, buoyed by the air in their cargo holds.
Jherek knew the ships probably wouldn't last even if they reached the surface. Though there was still some air in their holds, the structures were weakened beyond repair and would be taking on water rapidly. Quick crews might man the bilge pumps and keep themselves afloat for a time, but that assumed any crew was left.
"There is the Taker," Pacys said, still able to talk thanks to the bracelet he wore.
Jherek spotted the big sahuagin ahead. Only the Taker didn't resemble a sahuagin any more. He looked human as he fumbled with an object in his hands. A pale female elf holding a trident swam close behind him.
In the next instant, the sea wyrm broke the surface and
Jherek drew in a long breath. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the sea wyrm had raised Khlinat to the surface as well, holding the dwarf in its curled tail.
Turning, Jherek watched Azure. Daggers stern clear the surface first, revealing the broken stern mast. Then the crow's nest bucked up, wavering with the sea's motion.
The young paladin headed for the caravel by tugging on the sea wyrm's forward fin. The creature raced across the ocean surface.
Frantically, Jherek searched Azure Daggers deck.
"Jherek, here!"
Drawn by her voice, the young paladin spotted Sabyna crawling down from the twisted remnants of the foremast rigging where a corpse hung. He guided the sea wyrm to the caravel.
Azla stood up, coughing and gagging in the stern, then took a deep breath and started bellowing orders to her crew. Azure Dagger listed heavily in the sea, nearly half of her below the waterline.
"Look," Pacys said softly. The Taker."
Jherek turned in time to see Iakhovas pull up from the sea, grabbing hold of Azure Daggers stern. The helmsman turned on the man, swinging a cutlass.
Iakhovas blocked the blade with his bare arm and the steel broke with a sharp ping. The Taker shoved his arm against the man, thrusting a sharp-edged fin through the helmsman's chest in a spray of blood.
Striding to the railing, Iakhovas roared, "Get off my ship or die!"
Laaqueel tasted the salt in the water around her and knew she was home. She gazed through the deep blue-green sea and tried to sense in what direction the sahuagin kingdom of Alkyraan in the Claarteeros Sea lay.
And should you go back there, the female voice asked, what do you think will be waiting for you?
"Leave me alone," Laaqueel demanded.
A hero's homecoming? A grateful return for the Most Sacred One-And what happens when some of the sahuagin in these waters return there as well with stories of-the way. Iakhovas has betrayed them? What if Iakhovas himself return* there intending to control the kingdom he won while he plots war with the rest of Toril?"
"No."
Those are his plans, Laaqueel. You cannot deny that.
The malenti priestess cowered in the water, wishing there was some way to be free.
You can be free.
"By giving myself to you?"
I will teach you to live free, Laaqueel. I will show you things you've longed for all your life and have never been able to name. You've changed too much now to go back to what you were.
"No."
Yes.
Laaqueel floated in the water, watching as sahuagin and pirate continued the war they'd begun in Seros. Some of the sahuagin wore the bluer colors of the Inner Sea.