The prince looked at T'Kalah as well, then moved his trident to face the other sahuagin. "If you move, you shall have to get through me as well."

"I seek only to protect you," TKalah argued.

"Then do it by serving me," the prince ordered.

Angrily, T'Kalah held his trident upright in one hand, then folded his other two arms across his chest. "These are ill currents, Maartaaugh."

"If so," Maartaaugh said, "we shall swim through them." The prince turned his attention back to Iakhovas. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see your king," Iakhovas said.

"King Kromes is dead. He died when the volcano exploded."

Iakhovas remained silent.

"His death," Laaqueel stated to fill the uncomfortable void that followed, "was by the will of Sekolah."

"Liar!" T'Kalah cried. "He's dead by your hand! Killed when you came through the volcano!"

Maartaaugh looked at the royal guard. "They couldn't have come through the volcano."

"I tell you, Exalted One," T'Kalah stated, "it is as I say. Would you call me a liar?" He took a step away, setting himself into a fighting stance. "I won't take such an accusation without demanding blood honor."

"We came through the volcano," Iakhovas told them.

The sahuagin prince faced Iakhovas again. "How?"

Laaqueel heard the uncertainty and fear in the prince's voice. She knew Maartaaugh was thinking of the magic involved with such a thing. "We were brought here by the Great Shark's will."

"They spout still more lies," T'Kalah said. "All true sahuagin know that Sekolah doesn't meddle in the affairs of his chosen. He expects them to fend for themselves."

Maartaaugh's face grew stony. Laaqueel felt the prince slipping away from them, saw it in the way he folded his arms and closed in on himself.

"Why," Maartaaugh asked, "would Sekolah do such a thing?"

Laaqueel stepped forward, taking her place beside Iakhovas. She lifted her voice and made it strong. "The Great Shark has established certain currents within Most Exalted One Iakhovas. Sekolah started a ripple within the Claarteeros Sea, and through the strength and forethought of Iakhovas, that ripple has spread even unto Seros."

"Brave words," T'Kalah snarled, "but words are cheap."

"He brought an army here," Laaqueel said.

"And killed our king." T'Kalah stepped toward her. "Tell me why the Great Shark would choose a malenti to speak for him."

The words stung Laaqueel.

"Because," Iakhovas snapped, "her faith is stronger even than your thick-headedness."

T'Kalah swam up from the flier's deck, cutting through the water swiftly. The currents he started slammed against Laaqueel.

"Most Sacred One," Iakhovas said softly, "don't kill this one yet."

T'Kalah arrowed toward them, disregarding the prince's commands to return to the flier.

Summoning her power, Laaqueel shot out a hand, praying to the Great Shark that her control be strong and sure.

Little more than halfway between the vessels, T'Kalah's smooth stroke suddenly shattered. His arms and legs twisted in a vicious convulsion. He flailed out against the sea as if it was closing in on him.

Laaqueel held the sahuagin warrior in the spell's thrall, knowing the pressure she'd created was so great he wasn't able to breathe properly.

"Enough," Iakhovas said.

Silently, Laaqueel dismissed the spell, feeling terribly fatigued. It was one thing, she knew from experience, to unleash a spell, and quite another to attempt to curtail it and shape it once it had been loosed.

Released from the crushing pressure, T'Kalah finned weakly in the ocean, barely able to control himself. Weakness showed in every move he made. Angrily, he retreated back to his flier.

"What do you want?" Maartaaugh asked.

"If your king is dead," Iakhovas asked, "who leads?"

"The remaining princes. We serve as council. For the moment."

"How many are you?"

"Five," Maartaaugh answered.

"Then I will speak to them."

Glints of anger stirred in Maartaaugh's black eyes. "Why should I allow it?"

"You would be foolish to try to stop me," Iakhovas declared. "I've come from an ocean, a world away, and I've come here for one thing only. I've traveled to Seros to free you from your prison."

Laaqueel stood at Iakhovas's side as he spoke at the public forum he'd demanded. She felt the currents eddying around her, tracked by the lateral lines that ran through her body. She watched the five princes gathered at the makeshift table that had been hastily cobbled together by laying a section of flat rock over two stacks of rock in one of the cleared areas in the center of Vahaxtyl. The table was more a show of authority than any furnishing. The princes wore their halters of rank and held their tridents.

All of the princes were grim-faced. They didn't even talk among themselves at Iakhovas's announcement.

The malenti priestess knew they were of one mind. Maartaaugh had already spoken to them. Even then, Iakhovas had agreed to come to their offered meeting unarmed, with only Laaqueel and a dozen Black Tridents as a token show offeree.

If the princes voted against Iakhovas's offer, Laaqueel had no doubt that they would all be dead before the sun stabbed down into the water again. She averted her gaze from the princes' table out of deference, and more nervousness than she wanted to admit.

Most of the populace of Vahaxtyl ringed them, sitting on broken terrain over the underground sections of the city.

Huge gray lava rocks piled high all around. She knew Iakhovas's voice carried well in the water, but messengers were on hand to relay what was spoken. She heard Iakhovas's words passed on again and again.

Most of the sahuagin crowd's body language registered disbelief and anger. They knew that the outer sea sahuagin had come through the exploding volcano and had emerged unharmed while so many of their city died. That crowd was only a step away from reaching out for vengeance. The rubble of the city lay scattered around them, and the twilight gloom of the depths filled the water above them.

Laaqueel didn't know what Iakhovas had been thinking to agree to the princes' terms. She drew water in through her gills, held it for a moment, then flushed it out again.

Steady, my priestess, Iakhovas stated calmly in her mind. Trust in your faith. Everything is going to be as it should.

As it should for them, or for us? she asked.

Iakhovas didn't answer.

Toomaaek stood at the center of the table. He was tall and thick, his body covered in scars from sharp edges and flames, testifying to how closely he'd fought the surface dwellers over his years. "You are responsible for the deaths of our people," he said.

"Am I?" Iakhovas demanded. His voice was hard and cutting as coral. "In my belief, only the weak die in mass graves, and those are taken by Sekolah's sharp fins and ferocious fangs. He wants his people strong."

"You twist our beliefs," Toomaaek said.

"No." Iakhovas's denial was flat, unarguable. "I only embody them with my actions. Sekolah sent me here, gave me the ship that made this possible. He destroyed the inadequate among your people to leave those who would be willing to die fighting for their freedom."

A rumble of angry clicks and whistles echoed in from the crowd. Laaqueel studied the sahuagin around them. She'd already overheard several comments about her own heritage and the fact that she was a malenti. Iakhovas's words struck the crowd harshly, fanning the anger in them to fever-pitch intensity.

Though the sahuagin didn't believe in the same concepts of family as the surface dwellers and sea elves did, they did stand for the community as a whole. Refusal to accept the loss and make someone else responsible was natural to them. She felt Iakhovas should have known to handle things better. Silently she prayed, knowing they were only inches away from death.