Rising tide - Mel Odom [6]
"Mulhorand is believed to be the oldest continually inhabited human country," she said. "It's located in the ocean the surface dwellers call the Sea of Fallen Stars."
"I know of our home sea, the Claarteeros Sea, the one the humans call the Trackless Sea and the Sea of Swords," Viiklee stated. "I know of the Veemeeros Sea, which they've named the Shining Sea, but I have never heard of the sea you speak of."
"It's an inland sea." Laaqueel watched their eyes widen. As young priestesses, their view of the world was kept deliberately small to encourage strength in their beliefs. Trained as a malenti spy to go into the cities of elves, Laaqueel had been taught early about the geography of the world even beyond what the humans termed the Sword Coast. She remembered how she'd felt when she'd first been told of the Sea of Fallen Stars. The idea of a land-locked sea was frightening.
"How can such a thing be?" Saanaa asked.
Laaqueel turned her hands outward, exposing the webbing between her fingers to show even they were empty. It was a purely sahuagin gesture, not the spasmodic shrug she'd learned of the humans and elves.
"It must be Sekolah's will," Viiklee stated.
"Perhaps."
"Are there sahuagin there?" Saanaa asked.
"I don't know. I've heard stories, but nothing I was able to confirm. The sea elves living along the Sword Coast take very little interest in anything outside their own villages and trading needs. The humans I've had chance to meet were more interested in filling their pockets with gold and silver than in answering questions I might advance, and I was trained not to draw too much attention to myself."
"Living in such a fashion must have been hard," Saanaa said.
"I hated it," Laaqueel admitted. "Elven and human ways are not meant for sahuagin. They are too soft, too greedy. I welcome the day that we are able to push them from the sea and from the coastal lands and take back our world in the waters." She paused. "Still, Sekolah gave each sahuagin the currents of his or her life…"
"… and it is up to each to swim with them," the other two priestesses finished the familiar phrase.
"As we swim with this one now," Laaqueel added.
"Did the book you read mention that Sekolah was within this Sea of Falling Stars?" Viiklee asked.
"As far as I know," the malenti answered, "Sekolah was never there, nor was One Who Swims With Sekolah."
"How did the stones get there?" Saanaa asked.
Laaqueel shook them again, causing them to repeat their message. "It's a mystery, one of many I hope to find answers for."
"How do you know One Who Swims With Sekolah is here?" Viiklee asked. "Why aren't we looking for him in the Sea of Falling Stars?"
"Because the book mentioned that One Who Swims With Sekolah's final resting place was in the Veemeeros Sea. It wasn't called that in the book, but from the description of the land with terrible giant reptiles nearby, it could only be this place."
"If only the sea weren't so large," Saanaa sighed.
Uncoiling, filled instantly with anger, Laaqueel backhanded the younger priestess. An explosion of bubbles erupted from her gills. "Sacrilege! The sea is our life!"
Saanaa cried out in pain, covering her face. "I didn't mean it!" she cried. "Forgive me, favored one. I meant only that our task would be easier-"
"Sekolah never meant for sahuagin life to be easy," Laaqueel snapped, "else he would never have given the sahuagin so many enemies." She was going to add more, a sermon already on her tongue.
Before she could begin, the stones pulled gently from her hand, drifting into a current. Laaqueel watched them, feeling the old fear of magic twisting her stomach into knots around her last meal. Her abilities as priestess, she knew, rivaled those of some mages, but those abilities were given by the Great Shark, awarded to those whose prayers were truest, loudest, and strongest.
Viiklee and Saanaa drew back quickly, raising a murky cloud from