Читать «THE SEA DEVIL S EYE (зксм-3)» онлайн - страница 43

"Where are we?" she asked Iakhovas.

Silently, Iakhovas replied, through the connection made between them by the quill near her heart. There are others here.

Picking up on the tension in Iakhovas's words, Laaqueel grasped her trident more tightly and peered into the shadows around them. Her lateral lines picked up the small movement of fish nearby, and the coil of an eel shifting in its hiding place.

Who are we meeting? she asked.

Allies, Iakhovas replied. That is all you need trouble yourself to know, little malenti.

Unease swept through Laaqueel. Over the last four days, she'd seen little of Iakhovas. He'd remained within Tarjana's belly and hadn't allowed her to visit with him much. He watched over the princes in Vahaxtyl, and even though the malenti priestess told him they should return to the sahuagin city and change the currents that were passing through the minds of the populace as the princes spoke out against him, Iakhovas resisted. Clearly, he followed his own agenda.

She felt new movement. Something was slithering in from the left. The sensation pulsing through her lateral lines made her skin tighten in primitive fear. She turned to face it, dropping the trident's tines in front of her.

"Welcome," Iakhovas boomed.

He moved his arms and floated twenty feet down through the water to the sea floor. Puffs of sand rose up around his boots, then quickly settled again.

Three figures glided across the ocean floor from beneath a coral-encrusted arch. Laaqueel's senses told her more of them remained in hiding, but she could not tell how many more. She studied the figures, opening her eyes to their widest to use what little light the depths held.

They looked like surface dwellers, dressed in clothing rather than going naked as most races in Seros did. There were three men, none of them possessing any remarkable features. They carried no apparent weapons, which surprised Laaqueel. The only surface dwellers the malenti priestess came in contact with who hadn't carried weapons were magic-users.

"Welcome," one of the men greeted. The word sounded foreign to his lips. "You have received word through Vurgrom of the Taker's Eye?"

"Yes," Iakhovas said. "I was told the eye resides in Myth Nantar."

"And so it does."

"I have brought gifts for the Grand Tor, a means of increasing his own armies," Iakhovas said.

He whirled the net above his head and it grew, increasing in size until it was as big as Iakhovas. He flung it away from him and still it grew. Something struggled within the strands.

When the net finished growing, it was huge. Tritons moved against each other inside it, striving desperately against the hemp strands.

The tritons were humanoid in appearance. They had the pointed ears and beautiful features of elves, long manes of dark blue and dark green hair. From the waist up, they could be easily mistaken for sea elves. From the waist down they were covered in deep blue scales. Their finned legs ended in broad, webbed flippers.