Rising Tide

IV

3 °Ches, the Year of the Gauntlet (40 days earlier)

Laaqueel glided through the dark waters outside Waterdeep Harbor, staying in the shadow of the pentekonter on the surface above her and mentally preparing herself for the coming battle. She swam just under the ship, between the oars that swept the water on either side of it. Her pale skin made her stand out in the darkness, not blending in like her fellow sahuagin did or even a sea elf would. Below her, the ocean floor looked dark and was kept clean of debris. She knew the mermen who lived in the waters around Waterdeep helped keep the area orderly. They were also one of the major threats to the subterfuge they were attempting.

The unaccustomed cold of the northern waters chilled her. This early in the year, chunks of ice still floated whole through the Sea of Swords, frozen islands reminding her of how far from home she'd swam.

The cold numbed her body, but her mind ran unfettered by discomfort. Her thoughts were filled with grim doubts and she murmured a constant prayer to Sekolah that they might be granted success.

The pentekonter was sixty feet long and stood tall in the water. It had a rounded prow that made it look sluggish, but whether pushed by wind or pulled by oars, it moved quickly for a surface dweller's craft. Two banks of oars, one of them below the raised deck, allowed even greater speed when necessary. Hollow outriggers helped the ship maintain stability, and promoted the use of the second bank of oars.

Big as it was, the ship provided plenty of cover for the malenti and the dozen or so sahuagin that had needed to immerse themselves in the life-giving sea again for a short time during their voyage. Less than two hundred yards away, her sensitive vision picked up the underwater torches marking the boundaries of Deepwater Isle. Along with the warships that patrolled the nearby waters, it was Waterdeep's first line of defense.

In all of her life, she'd never been this close to the city. Waterdeep was called the City of Splendors, and from her vigil aboard the pentekonter, she knew the name was well deserved.

Some of the tall buildings in the different wards were impressive. They jutted up from the cityscape, possessing color and character that were unique. Those in the Castle Ward, especially Waterdeep Castle, were works of art even to her eyes. The daring plunge from the cliffs to the sea in the North Ward had taken her breath away even seeing the area from afar. Sahuagin villages were built close to the ocean floor, depending on tunnels to link them. In the water, heights only gave an enemy more area to attack. Gravity wasn't as forceful in the ocean as it was in the air.

At another time she thought she might have liked to walk along the winding and hilly streets of the city just to see what was there. It was a city worth exploring-after the surface dwellers had been driven from it.

That was what Iakhovas intended to do this very night.

She was certain that Iakhovas wasn't telling all he knew, or revealing all that he wanted in tonight's raid. He never did. Waterdeep had over one hundred thousand people in the city, more than four times the forces Iakhovas had gathered for the attack.

Thanks to the humans Iakhovas and his other malenti spies had paid off over the last three years in preparing for tonight, they had good maps of the city. Iakhovas had made certain of that. Even now thinking of him and knowing how he schemed and sacrificed her people made the obsidian quill lodged next to her heart grow too hot to be comfortable. Over the years of their relationship, she'd learned the quill allowed him to control her through pain and kept him informed on when she told truth or falsehood. Never a day had gone by that she didn't know it was there.

She breathed in through her mouth, taking the water and pushing it through her gills, flushing her system. For fifteen years, since that night in the underground tomb in the Shining Sea, she'd served him, watching him grow and take the power she'd wanted and was prevented from having by an accident of birth.

Still, there had been changes that benefited her. She was now High Priestess in her village. Iakhovas had made himself one of the nine princes, and that was only during the times he deigned to stay with the sahuagin. There were plenty of absences he had that were never explained. Nor was she in a position to demand answers, though at times she sorely wanted to.

"Most favored one," a nearby sahuagin called to her.

"Yes," she asked.

The sahuagin male bowed his head in deference and said, "Prince Iakhovas requests that you join him."

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand then swam toward the opening in the bottom of the ship above her. The sahuagin had captured the vessel in the Moonshae Isles almost two years ago then quietly sunk it so the repairs Iakhovas wanted could be done. One of those changes had been the construction of a water well amidships that allowed sahuagin entry to the ocean. They could stay out of water for four hours at a time, but immersion for an equal amount of time was required before they were back at full strength.

Swimming through the well, Laaqueel continued on through the submerged lower compartment where sahuagin rowers worked the massive oars to propel the craft. They all looked at her, respect in their silvery eyes. The pentekonter's outriggers were attached to the hull and had been specially modified to compensate for the hole in the ship's hull, letting the ship ride lower in the water.

Grabbing the ladder leading up to the ship's second level, Laaqueel pulled herself from the water, automatically feeling the dryness in the air even at sea level, and the extra weight from sheer gravity. She hated being out of the water, resonating with the fear that never quite left her no matter how much experience she had with being on the surface.

Her breath tightened as it ran through her gills. Breathing air was hard work, and she always remained conscious of having to inhale and exhale. In addition, her movements were no longer as fluid as they were in the water. She felt heavier on the surface. She was always acutely aware that her lateral lines no longer sent information to her. Water dripped from her as she walked, draining from her hair and body, and the sahuagin harness she wore.

Thirty men occupied the ship's upper hold. Short and thin, dressed in common clothing and carrying short swords, they didn't look threatening, but the sewer stench that clung to them made everyone give them a wide berth. All of them furtively stared after her with lust because of her near-nudity.

She ignored their interest. Choosing to dress as a sahuagin had been her choice, and she wasn't going to be bothered by them. They knew their place in the forces of Prince Iakhovas, and they knew their place around her after she'd killed the first one who'd touched her.

Iakhovas had assembled these men even as he had the four ships that made up their invasion force. All of them suffered from the curse of lycanthropy, changing forms between human and rat as easily as a sahuagin might strap on another harness.

Laaqueel would rather have taken the whole shipload of wererats to the bottom of the Sea of Swords and drowned them. She went up the stairs leading out of the hold onto the deck. Giving her sight a moment to adjust to the surface conditions, she turned and found Iakhovas standing in the prow.

"Laaqueel," he called out to her in that strong, whispering voice. He stood with his arms folded over his chest, staring out over the port city. He sensed her without facing her.

"I'm here, exalted one," she said.

"Of course you are." Iakhovas turned to her, a smile on his hard face.

He'd grown since she'd found him those years ago. In fifteen years, he'd grown stronger as he found those things that had been lost to him. She accompanied him on some of those forays, following him to hidden places in the sea where they found objects that still remained mysterious to her.

One of the first had been a circlet that gave him control of some sea creatures, giving him the power to communicate and order them about. He'd taken that from some of the mermen who'd relocated to Waterdeep and now lived in underwater caves off Waterdeep Isle. Another had been the bloodstone globe that allowed him to control weather that Laaqueel had to assassinate a Calishite gem merchant for when he raised his price to something more than she could afford. She'd narrowly escaped with her life during that mission.

Iakhovas had never taken her into his confidence, though, never explained himself to her. Nor did he tell her much of the objects he had collected. Later, he'd employed groups that went out to retrieve the objects for him, using any who could be bought or bribed, including the morkoth who were lifelong enemies of the sahuagin. He still did.

One group of pirates worked in the Sea of Fallen Stars for him, gathering objects as well as information. When they had an object, they sent it through a dimensional door that connected the pirate's ship to the sahuagin palace. With those objects in his possession, Iakhovas had grown more powerful, and he'd grown physically. At first, Laaqueel hadn't been certain of the correlation, but she was certain now. Though she'd tried to spy on him, she couldn't. She even thought he'd been leading her on at times, letting her almost see, tantalizing her with his secrets only to take them away at the last moment.

At present he was head and shoulders taller than Laaqueel, and he no longer looked emaciated. His body had filled out, becoming broad and supple. The runic tattoos spread out to fill the extra skin, but still hadn't become any more legible to her. He wore a black silk blouse and black breeches with silver buckles and chains over black boots. A sea-green cloak hung from his shoulders to his ankles, more an affectation than any real comfort from the cool breezes swirling through the port city.

Laaqueel stopped in front of him and waited.

Only running lanterns glowed on board the pentekonter, enough to obey the Waterdhavian harbor rules. Little of the deck was occupied, but the sailors were more of the wererats Iakhovas had involved in the raid.

The weak light traced patterns across Iakhovas's face. He would have been handsome by human standards, Laaqueel knew, even with the scars that tracked his features. No matter what magic he'd worked over the past fifteen years to rebuild himself, he hadn't been able to remove those scars. He'd grown a short beard and mustache that covered some of them. A sea-green patch that matched his cloak covered his empty eye socket. Even his hair had grown, filling in the patchy areas and dropping past his shoulders now, turned coal black.

"How may I aid you, exalted one?" she asked.

"Why, little malenti, I merely wanted you to join me at the beginning of our triumph over the surface dwellers," he stated. He shifted, lithe as a dancer on his feet in spite of the moving deck. "You have your own desires for power, though it's remained somewhat elusive for you in spite of the fact I've raised your station in life and among your own people. I've recognized you for your worth though they didn't. For all of your years of support, you deserve that." He waved a hand at the port city, then clasped it into a fist. "I would offer you a kingdom, little malenti, if I ever cared enough to share."

Laaqueel knew him well enough to know that was the real reason. Iakhovas wanted an audience for his conquest-an audience who knew all of the truths, or at least knew more of the truths than the sahuagin tribes who'd listened to him did. He loved the complexities of his own plotting, and the layers of subterfuge he manipulated seemingly so easily, loved the way his whispering voice seemed to have a hypnotic effect on those who listened. He had the power to advance his ideas and make others believe they'd thought of them.

"Gaze upon Waterdeep, little malenti, which the surface dwellers descry and proclaim as the crown jewel of all Faerun," Iakhovas said. "I have been told that people journey to this place, expecting to enjoy pleasures they don't have at home, and feel safe and secure in their rented beds." He smiled, and the expression was filled with evil. "Ah, but tonight, tonight we strip that from them, never more to return, as we shatter the spine of her navy."

The Waterdhavian Naval Harbor lay farther to the north, managing two water gates of its own. The navy was one of the chief concerns the malenti had about the night's raid. The Waterdhavian Navy had always defended the shores of the city well, and of course there were the mermen.

"We've not gotten the bulk of our forces past the harbor gate yet," she reminded.

Despite the power he held over her and the potential he offered, she couldn't always simply agree with him. He was no true sahuagin, even though the others believed he was. In the intervening years, she'd come to understand why the sahuagin of her own tribe hadn't readily accepted her even after Baron Huaanton had named her as a protected ward after her birth. Her own exterior was an accident of birth. Iakhovas only masqueraded as a sahuagin. In her heart, she was sahuagin.

She'd helped him manage that masquerade only through coercion, and even now it didn't set well with her. After she'd found him, he'd made her spend two years with him in the Veemeeros where she'd found him, teaching him about Faerun. Everything seemed new to him, but he was careful not to reveal anything about his own origins. Even Laaqueel's spy training hadn't helped her gather information about him.

Once they'd returned to her village, he'd used his powers to turn himself into a sahuagin hatchling, and she'd introduced him into a hatchling area. He'd maintained his own development in the village, but had kept contact with Laaqueel. She had named him in the brief ceremony after the surviving hatchlings were introduced into the tribe, giving him his own name at his request, though it wasn't a sahuagin name. Everyone in the village had believed it was because she was malenti, wanting to flaunt her difference, but Baron Huaanton had allowed the name to stand.

Now, though, Baron Huaanton was King Huaanton and Iakhovas, though only age thirteen in the sahuagin years, was a prince. Normally it took almost three hundred years to attain such a rank by serving the community and taking advantage of events that transpired, but he had used his magic and curried favor with Huaanton by maneuvering a duel with Huaanton's senior and killing the last prince in battle. Unable to take the position himself because of the sahuagin code regarding such advances, Huaanton had become prince. Huaanton had also realized how dangerous Iakhovas was for the first time and had stood behind Iakhovas's bid for the baronial vacancy. None of the other chieftains had tried to challenge his right to do that. When Huaanton had slain the last king and taken over the position, he'd promoted Iakhovas again. Laaqueel had never discovered if it was because Huaanton feared Iakhovas, or if the sorcerer had helped place Huaanton on the throne.

"Oh, little malenti, do you have such a small faith?" he asked.

"No," she admitted, choosing not to react to the insult. Her faith resided where it always had: with Sekolah. She had received no sign that she wasn't doing exactly as the Great Shark wanted her to, "but the forces arrayed against us are formidable."

He turned and gazed again out across the harbor. "Those forces are only formidable when pitted against a lesser opponent. Make no mistake, little malenti, I'm not that and never have been." He smiled, oozing confidence. "No one these days has ever seen anything like me. Even in my own day, no one was like me."

"But to take Waterdeep…" Laaqueel said.

"Stand corrected, little malenti, we're not taking Waterdeep," Iakhovas said. "We're presenting the surface world their options, throwing down the gauntlet so to speak. The surface dwellers need to be put on notice that they're living near these waters only on my sufferance. I will take back that which is rightfully mine no matter how many of them have to perish." He touched the patch covering his empty socket unconsciously. "I will be made whole again, and I will reclaim my proper station as the oceans' master."

"If we can't take the city, why send all these sahuagin to their deaths?" she asked.

"More humans will die this night than sahuagin," he told her. "You have my promise on that."

The way that he always referred to the humans as their species, and a despised one at that, let Laaqueel know he didn't consider himself one of them. For awhile she'd thought he might be of elven blood, but he had the gills and webbed hands and feet of a sea elf and used magic as easily as a sahuagin spilled blood. The accursed sea elves knew no magic except for that granted to their priests and priestesses.

He offered no clue as to what he truly was.

His power of illusion was incredible, steeping him in layers of deceit and trickery. She wasn't certain if she'd ever seen the true being she knew as Iakhovas. The sahuagin recognized him as a fellow being, and the wererats and other humanoids saw him as one of their own, even when they were all standing in the same place, and no one questioned it.

"Why should any sahuagin die if it's not necessary?" she asked.

"Because, little malenti, I have need of their deaths, and they must prove their fealty to me if I'm to champion their cause in this world." Iakhovas surveyed the nearing warning lights of Waterdeep Harbor. Anchored buoys clanged in the distance near Deepwater Isle, warning of the shallows there. "Sacrifices must be made. As I've learned, this is the last day in Ches, a time of holidays in Deepwater."

Laaqueel had learned that even as Iakhovas had. The Waterdhavians called the festival Fleetswake. During that time the mariners and the city gave homage to Umberlee, the dread sea goddess. Umberlee's Cache lay in the belly of the sloping bowl of Deepwater Harbor on the other side of Darkwater Isle. In years past, offerings to Umber-lee had been dropped on the harbor floor, then mermaid shamans had broken that floor open to the great cavern system below that no one had ever mapped out. Every now and again, the malenti spotted the magical beam of the lighthouse near Umberlee's Cache skate below the dark waters ahead of them. It was used to guide the merfolk that were part of Waterdeep's defense hierarchy.

"The promise and bounty of Fleetswake convokes ships from over all Faerun, giving the surface dwellers a dream of shared peace and prosperity," Iakhovas went on. "Traders, warriors, craftsmen, bards, and thieves, all will be represented on those cobblestone streets. There will be many in Waterdeep to tell the tale of the battle this night. They will spread that tale to the corners of all Toril, their wagging tongues making the story larger and more intense as it is passed along."

"The surface dwellers could be incited to hunt the sahuagin down."

Iakhovas laughed loudly. "Little malenti, let them come. Let them rise above their cowardice, strap their weapons about their loins, and sail out into these seas that I have marked as mine. If they sail out into the sea after us, they sail only to their deaths. In fact, it will only help my cause if part of this war is played out in our element. We can bare our teeth and our claws, and show them the foolishness of any sort of resistance. It will also serve to threaten the other sahuagin tribes who haven't seen fit to join our effort."

"The surface dwellers could unite."

Iakhovas shook his head. "Not according to everything I've studied about these jealous cultures," he told her. "These nations of surface dwellers have long histories of bitter feuds and rivalry over trade agreements, religion, and politics. What countries can hope to survive if they follow a path laden with those traps and snares? No, even should they endeavor to agree on a common enemy, we shall own the seas. In their limited intelligence and greed, the surface dwellers may have learned to cross the oceans, but they'll never master them, never the way I have."

Laaqueel had other doubts that she almost voiced. She didn't, though, since she knew Iakhovas would counter each of them with an argument of his own.

"Ready yourself, little malenti," Iakhovas ordered, pointing at the approaching small lateen-sailed galley bearing Waterdhavian colors. The galleys supported the navy rakers that provided protection for the harbor.

The malenti moved forward, standing at her master's side and holding her trident at the ready. She carried a sword belted at her waist. She didn't much care for the weapon, but she'd been trained to use it.

"Ahoy, Drifting Eel," a mariner wearing the uniform of the Waterdeep Guard called out. A dozen other men stood in the galley's prow, armed with heavy crossbows and swords. The crew aboard her matched speeds with the pentekonter easily, pulling alongside and remaining only a few yards out from the bigger ship's oars.

"Ahoy," Iakhovas called back.

"State your name, home port, and business within Waterdeep Harbor," the guard ordered, waving men into action who shined bulls-eye lanterns over the pentekonter.

"I stand before you, birth-named Iakhovas, captain of Drifting Eel. As for a home port, we hail from Snowdown, in the Moonshaes. Why we're here? Why, man, it's Fleetswake, a time of revel and a time of profit for a man who's got coin to be spent and a cargo worth buying. I'd not forsake Waterdeep's hospitality at this time for anything."

The guard smiled and looked tired. "You're getting here late," he said.

"Aye," Iakhovas replied, "and had the parsimonious storm we had the ill-favor to encounter and embrace two days ago had been more inclined than I, I'd not be here at all."

"How much damage did you take on?" the guard asked. A frown creased his face. "I don't want any lagging ships standing in the way of the shipping lanes. If you're not all together, you can moor up outside the harbor and pay passage on some of the service boats to get inside the city."

"Trust me," Iakhovas answered. "Should anything go wrong with this vessel, you'll be the first to know. I've seen to the repairs, and now I'm ready to make back the losses I've incurred."

The harbor guard shined his lantern at the pentekonter's water line. "You're riding low, Cap'n Iakhovas."

Even the modified outriggers hadn't been able to compensate for the ship's increased draw made necessary to keep the sahuagin rowers aboard underwater. Laaqueel had hoped it wouldn't be as apparent when they arrived at night, but the surface dwellers knew their vessels.

"My dear fellow, the sheer amount of cargo we're carrying is justification enough to force us to sit low in the water," Iakhovas replied.

"You must have brought a lot."

"Everything we found we were able to pack into the hold."

"I'm Civilar Noth of the Waterdeep Guard," the man said. "Prepare to be boarded and present your manifests."

Iakhovas called out the order to lower the rope ladder. One of the wererats kicked it and sent the rope ladder bundle spilling down the side of the pentekonter. The bottom several rungs landed in the water with a flat splat.

The civilar and two of his people swarmed up the ladder with practiced ease. Laaqueel noted that they kept their hands on the hilts of their short swords, and something magical clung to one or more of them. Her priestess training had made her sensitive to magic auras. She considered invoking the gifts given to her from Sekolah but didn't. The spells the Shark God had given her needed to be held for a later time.

Iakhovas's magic seemed to know no bounds, though. The malenti remembered in the beginning, after she'd found him, that his powers had been so scarce she'd nearly escaped him half a dozen times. Now he commanded large amounts of magic easily, and that seemed to grow with each item he recovered.

The glamour Iakhovas had cast over the pentekonter held, making Drifting Eel look like a normal ship with a normal crew.

The civilar crossed the deck and took out the blank sheet of paper Iakhovas handed him. "Everything here's satisfactory," he declared after a moment. "I'd like to take a look at the hold."

"Of course." Iakhovas raised his one-eyed gaze to Laaqueel. "My associate will show you the way, if you please."

Laaqueel nodded, but remained silent. She didn't know if Iakhovas's spell rendered her as a male or female and she didn't want her voice to betray it, if that was possible. The sorcerer's abilities had never failed. She led the Waterdhavian Guardsmen down into the hold, readying her own spells if she needed them.

If the civilar and his entourage noticed her duck away from the lantern's bright light when they brought it close, they didn't give any indication. She paused at the bottom of the hold, looking out over the sahuagin still working at the oars. They kept up the cadence, seated in the murky water that lapped over their heads.

The civilar and his companions halted on the steps, held back by the illusion Iakhovas maintained over the pentekonter. "You people worked hard to get all these things in here," he said appreciatively.

Laaqueel only gave him a slight nod, not having a clue what the man thought he saw.

"May Tymora smile on you and bless you with her favors," the civilar said. He turned and went back up the steps.

"I presume all below decks was found to be in good standing?" Iakhovas asked when they walked back on deck.

"It was fine," the civilar said. "I'll get you clear of the East Torch Tower gate."

Iakhovas glanced at the man, fixing his single eye upon him and making a gesture with two fingers. "You mean the Stormhaven Island gate."

"Of course I do," the civilar responded.

"Passage for all four ships," Iakhovas went on.

"Aye. Passage for all four ships."

"And you'll stay with us to make sure we get through."

"I'll stay with you," the civilar said. "In the last few hours our orders were to take everyone through the East Torch Tower gate except under special circumstances."

"Good," Iakhovas said in a quiet, low voice. "Signal your men and secure passage for us."

The civilar took two torches from a waterproof pouch on his back. They reeked of oil. He struck a flint and the sparks leaped onto the first torch, catching immediately. He lit the second torch with the first.

Laaqueel took an involuntary step back when the combined torches blazed up. The acrid smoke dried the back of her throat and irritated her gills. Smoke made breathing in the open air even less tolerable.

Waving the torches in a brief pattern, the civilar stepped back. "You can proceed, my lord."

Laaqueel didn't miss the address. She could tell from Iakhovas's cruel smile that she wasn't supposed to.

None of the other members of the Guard said anything, just stood at military attention.

"Puppets," Iakhovas stated. "They say what I want and hear only what I want them to, and never a thought enters their heads unless I place it there myself."

The wererat crew milled on the deck as Drifting Eel's pilot brought them around to the Stormhaven Island gate. The gate was strategically located for Iakhovas's plan. The Waterdhavian Naval Harbor lay immediately to the northwest of the outer gate. Once the outer gate was taken down, the full thrust of the waiting attack would begin. By that time the sahuagin warrior groups circling Waterdeep by way of the mud flats to the north would attack the West Gate and split the city's forces.

North of the naval harbor, the great, bald craggy mountain where Waterdeep Castle had been built stood overlooking the entire city. Lights burned in various places along Piergeiron's Palace, announcing only some of the City Watch secured areas. Closer to the shore along the Dock Ward, the Watching Tower, the Harborwatch Tower, and Smuggler's Bane Tower all looked out over the Great Harbor. A grim fortification occupied the right side of Stormhaven Island gate.

Despite the iron control she'd developed as a sahuagin, a spy, a priestess, and as the only one who knew more of Iakhovas's secrets than anyone else, Laaqueel's stomach fluttered as she watched the huge metal nets that served as gates lower out of their way to the sea bed below. When they were up, getting a ship through was almost impossible.

Surface dwellers occupied the fortifications and towers above the harbor waters. Mermen, mermaids, and sea elves kept patrol in the depths. The proof of the attack, Laaqueel knew, would be learned in the next handful of minutes.

"It's time, little malenti," Iakhovas said, "assume command of your forces and insure that these gates remain open so that the rest of our navy will be able to join us. Do not fail me."

She nodded, her eyes meeting his solitary gaze. "I won't."

The Waterdhavian Guard members gave no notice of having overheard the conversation.

Laaqueel left the deck and went down the stairs. The sahuagin warriors gathered in the hold looked up at her expectantly. "It's time. No one lives. Only our enemies are around us."

"We are ready to slay in the name of Great Sekolah, most favored one," a four-armed chieftain roared. "Meat is meat. Our enemies will regret meeting We Who Eat."

The malenti remembered his name as Bouundaar, an aggressive male who'd worked his way up in rank quickly. The overly aggressive ones always did under Iakhovas's watchful eye. "Three teams, Chieftain Bouundaar, quickly."

"It has already been done, most favored one."

"Then come. You and your team are with me. The others go to attack the defenses at the bottom of the harbor and the fortification to the east."

"It shall be as you say, most favored one."

Laaqueel dived into the cold water without another word, and the battle for Waterdeep Harbor began.