Little more than halfway between the vessels, T'Kalah's smooth stroke suddenly shattered. His arms and legs twisted in a vicious convulsion. He flailed out against the sea as if it was closing in on him.
Laaqueel held the sahuagin warrior in the spell's thrall, knowing the pressure she'd created was so great he wasn't able to breathe properly.
"Enough," Iakhovas said.
Silently, Laaqueel dismissed the spell, feeling terribly fatigued. It was one thing, she knew from experience, to unleash a spell, and quite another to attempt to curtail it and shape it once it had been loosed.
Released from the crushing pressure, T'Kalah finned weakly in the ocean, barely able to control himself. Weakness showed in every move he made. Angrily, he retreated back to his flier.
"What do you want?" Maartaaugh asked.
"If your king is dead," Iakhovas asked, "who leads?"
"The remaining princes. We serve as council. For the moment."
"How many are you?"
"Five," Maartaaugh answered.
"Then I will speak to them."
Glints of anger stirred in Maartaaugh's black eyes. "Why should I allow it?"
"You would be foolish to try to stop me," Iakhovas declared. "I've come from an ocean, a world away, and I've come here for one thing only. I've traveled to Seros to free you from your prison."
Laaqueel stood at Iakhovas's side as he spoke at the public forum he'd demanded. She felt the currents eddying around her, tracked by the lateral lines that ran through her body. She watched the five princes gathered at the makeshift table that had been hastily cobbled together by laying a section of flat rock over two stacks of rock in one of the cleared areas in the center of Vahaxtyl. The table was more a show of authority than any furnishing. The princes wore their halters of rank and held their tridents.
All of the princes were grim-faced. They didn't even talk among themselves at Iakhovas's announcement.
The malenti priestess knew they were of one mind. Maartaaugh had already spoken to them. Even then, Iakhovas had agreed to come to their offered meeting unarmed, with only Laaqueel and a dozen Black Tridents as a token show offeree.
If the princes voted against Iakhovas's offer, Laaqueel had no doubt that they would all be dead before the sun stabbed down into the water again. She averted her gaze from the princes' table out of deference, and more nervousness than she wanted to admit.
Most of the populace of Vahaxtyl ringed them, sitting on broken terrain over the underground sections of the city.
Huge gray lava rocks piled high all around. She knew Iakhovas's voice carried well in the water, but messengers were on hand to relay what was spoken. She heard Iakhovas's words passed on again and again.
Most of the sahuagin crowd's body language registered disbelief and anger. They knew that the outer sea sahuagin had come through the exploding volcano and had emerged unharmed while so many of their city died. That crowd was only a step away from reaching out for vengeance. The rubble of the city lay scattered around them, and the twilight gloom of the depths filled the water above them.
Laaqueel didn't know what Iakhovas had been thinking to agree to the princes' terms. She drew water in through her gills, held it for a moment, then flushed it out again.
Steady, my priestess, Iakhovas stated calmly in her mind. Trust in your faith. Everything is going to be as it should.
As it should for them, or for us? she asked.
Iakhovas didn't answer.
Toomaaek stood at the center of the table. He was tall and thick, his body covered in scars from sharp edges and flames, testifying to how closely he'd fought the surface dwellers over his years. "You are responsible for the deaths of our people," he said.
"Am I?" Iakhovas demanded. His voice was hard and cutting as coral. "In my belief, only the weak die in mass graves, and those are taken by Sekolah's sharp fins and ferocious fangs. He wants his people strong."
"You twist our beliefs," Toomaaek said.
"No." Iakhovas's denial was flat, unarguable. "I only embody them with my actions. Sekolah sent me here, gave me the ship that made this possible. He destroyed the inadequate among your people to leave those who would be willing to die fighting for their freedom."
A rumble of angry clicks and whistles echoed in from the crowd. Laaqueel studied the sahuagin around them. She'd already overheard several comments about her own heritage and the fact that she was a malenti. Iakhovas's words struck the crowd harshly, fanning the anger in them to fever-pitch intensity.
Though the sahuagin didn't believe in the same concepts of family as the surface dwellers and sea elves did, they did stand for the community as a whole. Refusal to accept the loss and make someone else responsible was natural to them. She felt Iakhovas should have known to handle things better. Silently she prayed, knowing they were only inches away from death.
"You dare!" Toomaaek thundered.
"By Sekolah's blessed wrath," Iakhovas roared back, "I do dare!"
Toomaaek slammed the butt of his trident against the stone table. The sound echoed harshly, racing through the water.
"I dare to stand up for your people against those who would keep them in shackles," Iakhovas said, finning toward the princes' table. "I dare to travel here in a manner that I don't understand, listening to the guiding hand of the Great Shark as he speaks to my priestess, and trusting in the fact that I'm doing Sekolah's will."
"We don't know that." Toomaaek remained gruff.
"I do." Iakhovas kept swimming.
Laaqueel fell into motion automatically behind him. The guards around the princes started forward. One of them lowered his trident level with Iakhovas's chest.
With blinding speed, Iakhovas snatched the trident's tines away from his chest, then shoved the sahuagin guard back half a dozen paces. The show of strength caught the attention of everyone watching.
"Where are you guiding your people?" Iakhovas demanded. "What plans do you have for We Who Eat in Seros?"
Toomaaek tried to speak after a moment, but Iakhovas spoke loudly over him.
"For ten thousand years and more," Iakhovas said, "you and the barons, princes, and kings before you have let your people languish in this prison built by the hated sea elves and mermen."
Another guard stepped forward and thrust his weapon, ordering Iakhovas to halt.
As if shooing away a bothersome fingerling perch, Iakhovas shoved the trident aside with one hand and caught the sahuagin warrior by his war harness with the other. Iakhovas yanked, and the guard spun back into two sahuagin behind him, knocking them all off their feet so they floated out of control for a moment.
"Why have We Who Eat not been freed from this place?" Iakhovas demanded.
"There is no escape," Toomaaek stated.
Laaqueel heard the buzz of conversation streak through the crowd of onlookers.
Iakhovas sounded as if he couldn't believe it. "Have you not looked at the Shark God's teachings? Sekolah teaches us that all things are possible if enough blood is shed. They happen more quickly if most of the blood belongs to the enemies of We Who Eat."
Toomaaek stood his ground but clearly wasn't happy about it. Iakhovas leveled an accusatory finger at the table of sahuagin princes.
"With that kind of thinking," he said, "you've become the jailers of your own people. Not the sea elves and the mermen. You teach your young not to struggle against that perversion of our nature called the Sharksbane Wall." He shook his head in rage. "Our very natures cry out for struggle and adversity to test us and shape us into the most deadly warriors we can be. We're supposed to teach our own lesson in turn: that We Who Eat are meant to be the most feared creature in any of the seas."