Rising tide - Mel Odom [114]
"You claim the ear of Sekolah," Huaanton said, "when none of my priestesses claim any such contact."
"Not his ear," Iakhovas responded, "his voice. He speaks to me through my priestess. I seek only to obey, as should any true sahuagin."
The sahuagin king turned slowly toward Laaqueel, his tail flipping through the water in annoyance. That slight gesture was enough to emphasize the difference between him and her.
Huaanton spoke slowly, giving his words weight. "Why speak through such a… flawed vessel?"
Laaqueel instantly dropped her eyes as was the sahuagin custom. She let her arms drift away from her body at her sides, leaving herself defenseless. "I don't know, Exalted One," she replied, and that was partially the truth. As Iakhovas had pointed out, how could she have found him without Sekolah's intervention? Why hadn't another found the story of One Who Swims With Sekolah? What had made him choose her over the two true sahuagin priestesses who had been with her?
"Have you heard the Great Shark?" Huaanton demanded.
"No," Laaqueel answered, "though I have been given visions."
Those visions of combat and strife, of the sahuagin killing surface dwellers at the sides of massive beasts, had been constant for the last year. It could have been nightmares, brought on by listening to Iakhovas's plans for the sahuagin, but they could have been visions as well.
"Do you believe in these visions?"
Next to her heart, the black quill Iakhovas had inserted under her breast stirred in warning. A chill ran down her spine and her face went numb. "Yes," she replied. She knew to answer in any other fashion would have meant sudden death. She believed in Sekolah and she believed in her place in the Great Shark's plans.
Wherever Iakhovas led, she believed it would only strengthen the sahuagin. He was a harsh taskmaster, and his chosen war would only strengthen her people.
She felt Huaanton's eyes on her, but she knew he could go no further without opening the way to a challenge from either herself or Iakhovas.
"I live only to serve the will of Sekolah," Iakhovas stated. "Should anything try to stand in the way of that, I would be honor bound to see that thing-that person- destroyed as one of the Great Shark's enemies."
When her lateral lines signaled that Huaanton had turned from her, Laaqueel glanced back up and saw Iakhovas squarely meeting the sahuagin king's gaze.
"Since you've been among us," Huaanton said, "you've been overly ambitious."
"You lay that ambition so easily at my fins," Iakhovas replied slowly, "but I claim no part of it. The ambition, as you incorrectly call it, is merely the doctrine I've been given by my god to obey. I will not turn away from it."
"Twelve years of age," Huaanton said, "and you're already a prince."
"I've taken on the challenges Sekolah has laid before me, and they led me into those positions as the currents dictated," Iakhovas replied. "I rose from warrior to lieutenant, to baronial guard, to chieftain, and then baron because there was a need and because the Great Shark expected no less of the tool he would shape me into."
"You challenged and killed everyone who stood in your way."
"Fairly," Iakhovas said, "and obviously with Sekolah's blessing or I would not have survived. Three years ago, when Slaartiig came to your village where you then ruled as baron and laid claim to the crystal ball your warriors salvaged from a surface vessel they'd sunk, I challenged him for you because his claim to your property was unjust, as fits the rules that Sekolah has handed down to our people. No one expected me to live against such odds as that. Yet I did."
That wasn't