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"An elven book, favored one?" Saanaa asked.

"It was written by a human."

"About the sahuagin?" Disbelief sounded in the younger priestess's voice.

"Yes."

"It had to have been filled with lies."

"Incredibly," Laaqueel said, listening to her own words to further her resolve, "it held many truths."

"The sahuagin who gave our history to whomever wrote this book must have been enspelled." Saanaa shuddered. All sahuagin had an innate fear of anything magical.

Laaqueel shared that legacy. Even her time among the sea elves, who had no magic of their own either, hadn't prepared her to see the things she'd seen in her roving. Humans bent the very elements to their will and threw fireballs through the air when they wished. She'd seen it done. Power granted by Sekolah, however, was never in question. The Great Shark wielded magic and gave it to his most favored and most faithful of priestesses.

"I think so too," the malenti stated. "There was much in there about our communities as they were thousands of years ago." Actually, the community life described in the book hadn't changed much even now, though the places that were described were no longer on any sahuagin maps Laaqueel had ever seen. "I found among the myths of Sekolah a story that captured my eye and my heart."

"It was not about Sekolah?" Viiklee asked. She sat watching, her black eyes gleaming with interest. She had crept much closer to share in the tale.

Neither of the other priestesses saw fit to disagree.

"In his book," Laaqueel went on, "he gets a great number of things wrong, but in the creation myths concerning the Great Shark and how the sahuagin were given to the seas, he mentioned another being of power."

"Daganisoraan?" Saanaa asked.

"No," Laaqueel answered, pitching her voice low to fully hold the attention of her audience. Daganisoraan was a common figure in sahuagin tales, featured as both hero and villain depending on the myth. "This was before even Daganisoraan's time, and though I searched the book, the only name I ever found given to him was One Who Swims With Sekolah."

"Maybe," Viiklee said, "One Who Swims With Sekolah was the first sahuagin."

"No." Laaqueel shook her head. "He was someone… something… very powerful."

"Why haven't we heard more about him?" Saanaa asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps he was there in the beginning but gone before Sekolah saw fit to put the first sahuagin into the oceans. Only the thinnest of whispers managed to survive concerning him."

"What happened to him?"

Laaqueel took the small whalebone container from between her breasts. The container was hollowed out, carved in the shape of a shark. She unstoppered it and poured out six red and black stones into her palm. The red was so true, so inviolate, that it was visible even at this depth and in the gathering darkness. All of stones had holes drilled through them. "I don't know. The book mentioned that he was locked away from the rest of the world to be taught a lesson."