Iakhovas placed a long-nailed finger under her chin, tilting her head back to face him. "Ah, and little malenti, how can it still be that you have any doubts at all that I'm not working the will of Sekolah?"
"Because I don't understand," she told him, wanting desperately for an answer. "Nothing in my training taught me about any of this."
"Your training led you to the legend of One Who Swims With Sekolah."
"Yes."
"It led you to me."
She had no answer.
"Now you falter, when you should be enjoying your greatest success. After all, it was through your efforts you became royal high priestess, a position you would never have attained without your efforts to find the truth your training led you to. You doubt, yet there is more now than ever that should offer you conviction."
"I don't understand why we should involve ourselves in the Inner Sea. Our place is here."
Iakhovas hooked her chin with his talon hard enough to nearly bring blood. "Because it is as Sekolah wills. You're a hypocrite, little malenti. You took Huaanton to task because he wanted a sign from the Great Shark that what we were doing was as Sekolah willed it. Now, here I am, proof of that sign, and yet you refuse to believe. You want still further proof."
"I don't see what the Inner Sea-"
Enough! Iakhovas roared in her mind.
Laaqueel's knees buckled from the pain of the mental shout, and she fell to the deck.
"Do you want proof?" Iakhovas demanded. "Or do you want to believe? One is not the same as the other."
Tears came to Laaqueel's eyes because she knew what he said was true. The difference between knowledge and faith was the first lesson Senior Priestess Ghaataag had taught her when she took her into Sekolah's temple. So often as a child Laaqueel had drawn Ghaataag's wrath for doubting.
"You can have proof standing before you, little malenti, and still doubt what you see. As for belief, once you can weigh it and measure it, that belief becomes knowledge. Belief is something that can't be proven in this world of physical restraint, but it can't be broken either. Yet it is the strongest of things that exist in the world. Believing is much stronger than knowing."
Laaqueel continued crying silently, remembering all the times Ghaataag had made her go pray on her knees on a bed of broken coral until she was able to excise the doubt that had touched her then. She was so, so weak.
"No, little malenti," Iakhovas said more gently. "You're not weak. You're stronger than you know, but you're fighting yourself and you're finding yourself to be a more formidable opponent than any you've ever known. You stood the test of your priestesshood, and you found answers to questions that no one even knew existed until you came along." His voice grew fierce with pride. "How dare you call yourself weak."
His words calmed her a little, and they gave her back a measure of self-respect she'd been missing.
"I saw you stand up to Huaanton when he doubted in Sekolah. He could have taken your head then, claiming you to be mentally unbalanced by the aberration of your birth. You believed Sekolah would spare you then because you were right and you were standing up for him."
"I didn't know that he would."
Iakhovas smiled down at her. "That's what I said, little malenti. You didn't know. You believed. I only ask you to believe now." He offered her his hand and helped her to her feet.
Laaqueel regained control over her emotions with effort. Despite the fact that she wanted him to be wrong, Iakhovas was right. Belief was all she had in her life.
"I am the source of your greatest strength, little malenti," he told her softly. "I shall push you and goad you and shape you into your belief. Because I, by my very nature and the things we must accomplish together, will strip away everything in you that does not believe. Every weakness in you will be worn away by my actions, by the things Sekolah would have us accomplish. Your doubt shall forge us both into our destiny. Mark you that I only mentioned one such destiny. We shall arrive there together, and it will be glorious."
It was so easy to believe his words, but she had no choice really. What was she without her belief? She had the gifts Sekolah had given her, powers that no male sahuagin would ever know. What was there to doubt, except the man who stood before her?
He reached for her, touching her cheek with the back of his hand. It felt smooth and strong, and she found herself drawing away out of embarrassment. The feeling wasn't just out of the familiarity with which he chose to approach her, but because of the feeling his touch stirred within her.
"Ah, little malenti, you find the hungers of the alien flesh you wear have awakened." Iakhovas smiled darkly. "Bloody Falkane must have had quite an effect on you."
"What do you want?" she asked.
"From you, little malenti? Only your assistance. I find myself invulnerable to the charms you possess. Unlike Bloody Falkane, I find myself in no need of a spy within my ranks."
"I don't think his interest was purely for those reasons. He has loathsome habits."
"His reasons, whatever they are, I can guarantee you are anything but pure. So beware his charms, little malenti, because I'm told they're quite considerable."
Angry and embarrassed, Laaqueel turned away.
"Now I've offended you."
"No."
"You can't hide your true feelings from me. You should know that by now." Iakhovas spoke a word.
Instantly, the ship disappeared beneath them and Laaqueel dropped into the ocean. The water closed over her, taking her down and holding her close, the truest and only companion she'd ever known.
Across from her, Iakhovas caught the ship-in-the-bottle again and swam down. "Let's go check on my navy, little malenti. I've got an invasion to get underway."
XXI
19 Kyttora, the Year of the Gauntlet
"Something I can help you with, boy?"
Jherek bridled at the man's tone but calmed himself quickly. Emotion wasn't going to get him any closer to his objective. "I'm looking for someone."
The bartender set down a mostly clean glass and picked up another one, treating it to a quick bath in the dirty water in front of him, then drying it with the threadbare towel over his shoulder. He was broad and thick, with muscle that had marbled to fat over the years. A long gray fringe surrounded his gleaming pate, and an axe blade scar dented his forehead.
Behind him on the wall were rows of bottles containing different colored liquids. Two tapped ale kegs lay on their sides on rolling carts, and gruesomely displayed above them were seven koalinth heads. They'd been poorly mounted, and the piggish faces and floppy ears of the marine hobgoblins wrinkled and stretched hideously. The light green skin flaked off in several patches.
"This someone's got to have a name before I can help you," the bartender said. "That's how it usually works best."
Jherek flushed with embarrassment. Subterfuge was something new to him and he wasn't very good at it. He guessed he'd about strained his limit while keeping his identity secret from Glawinn and Sabyna.
"He calls himself Vurgrom," the young sailor said. "Vurgrom the Mighty."
The bartender looked at Jherek thoughtfully. He picked up a wooden splinter from the counter and worked it between his teeth for a moment. He never blinked.
Jherek met the man's level gaze, knowing he and his companions were in danger.
The Bent Mermaid had the reputation of being one of the worst taverns in Westgate-both in provender and clientele. It stood three stories tall and looked out over the neck of the Lake of Dragons. Docks stabbed long fingers out into the sea and ships from a dozen and more countries occupied the slips and stood at anchor out in the harbor.