Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [107]
Fear filled Laaqueel as she watched it vanish. Though she'd never been to the palace before the last year, she knew it had existed for thousands of years. "What have you done?"
"Relax, little malenti. Do not overconcern yourself. Your precious wall is intact. I'm merely using it at the moment for other purposes. Now come."
Woodenly, Laaqueel joined him, watching him step through the wall and vanish. Her gills flared as she drew in more water, then she pushed it through and calmed herself. She took a step forward, and in the next moment she was high in the shallows. Harsh sunlight glimmered silver across the sea surface only a few feet overhead.
"Where are we?" Laaqueel asked.
"Above the sahuagin city," Iakhovas answered. "Don't worry, little malenti, I haven't taken you far from home yet." He reached inside his cloak and took out the bottle the dead thing in the lime pit under Baldur's Gate had given him. "This is our prize."
Curious, Laaqueel swam closer to better see the bottle. It had been cleaned since she'd last seen it, the surface now bright and shiny. Brass capped both ends, gleaming in the sunlight penetrating the shallow depths. Inside was a tiny model of a great galley, one of the long ships the surface dwellers used for trade and war. The three sails were unfurled to catch the wind and tiny oars stuck out the sides in double rows.
"A ship in a bottle?" Laaqueel let acid drip into her words. Before she could say anything more, Iakhovas gestured angrily. In the next instant they both flew out of the water and came to a stop hovering forty or fifty feet above the surface.
"Do not mock me, little malenti," Iakhovas snapped.
He turned from her and threw the ship-in-the-bottle out toward the sea. It twirled and sparked sunlight as it descended. Before it touched the water, Iakhovas shouted a single word. The bottle burst into a spray of a thousand gleaming shards. In the next instant a full-sized great galley floated on the ocean below. Purple and yellow striped sails flared out from the three masts.
"Not just a child's amusement, little malenti. This is a weapon, a weapon I'm going to use to bring the surface dwellers of the Sea of Fallen Stars to their knees."
He gestured again and they floated to the deck. Laaqueel touched down lightly, feeling the ocean rub up against the ship.
"A great galley," Iakhovas stated, walking around the deck. He stroked the butt of one of the large crossbows mounted on the railing on the port side. The starboard side had them too. Racks held the harpoon-sized quarrels the weapons used for ammunition. "One hundred thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, it's a fortress, a place where I can command armies and rain destruction down upon my enemies. It takes one hundred and forty oarsmen, and can comfortably carry another one hundred fifty warriors. There are various other additions I mean to make."
"What?"
"Surprises," he told her, walking the length of the deck.
Despite the fact that she didn't want to, she followed him. She had no way of knowing how long the ship-in-the-bottle had been in the lime pit under Baldur's Gate, but it had weathered the time well. The wood grain of the deck was finished and smooth, showing no signs of warpage or wear.
"She's a mudship, one of only seven in all of Toril. Her name is Tarjana, which translates from an old and almost forgotten tongue to 'Fisherhawk on Wing.'"
Fisherhawks were oceangoing birds of prey. Equipped with a fourteen- to sixteen-foot wingspread, sharp talons, and fangs like a snake, fisherhawks were known to raid seabound vessels of small children, women, halflings, and the occasional dwarf as well as the fish it stripped from the sea.
Iakhovas pulled back his sleeve and revealed the gold bracelet he wore. Laaqueel had seldom seen it, but most of the slots on it that had been empty now appeared to be