He howled in agony and crawled toward the edge of the whale's carcass, scaring birds from his path. As the song continued, he reached the edge of the corpse and thrust his arm into the seawater, sure the wound he was undoubtedly suffering would kill him-or cost him his arm at the very least.

After what seemed an interminable time, the pain lessened, then went away.

Jherek drew his arm from the water expecting it to be burned clear through the flesh down to the bone. Instead, his arm seemed perfectly healthy, as if nothing had ever happened. Even the multi-colored bracer was gone.

Not gone, the sapphire whale corrected. The Binding has been completed. You and Iridea's Tear will never be separated as long as life remains within you.

Still on his knees, the young sailor held his bare arm up for the whale to see. Water droplets clung to his skin.

Iridea's Tear will be your badge, Jherek Whalefriend. In time, you will come to be known by it. But there will be times that you won't want to be known at all. The Binding allows this to happen. Think of the bracer upon your arm.

Jherek didn't want to, but once the thought was in his mind he couldn't help remembering the image.

Crimson, scarlet, yellow, and pink strands erupted from his skin. The strands quickly wove themselves into the bracelet, again running from his wrist to his elbow, the iridescent surface showing no fractures or lines.

The bracer can be easily hidden again when you wish.

Jherek willed the bracer to go away, but it remained upon his arm.

There is much you have to learn, the sapphire whale said. We will take time to teach you until you are ready to become.

"Become what?" Jherek persisted.

That which you are destined to be. Nothing more, nothing less.

XVIII

8 Eleasias, the Year of the Gauntlet

"To me!"

Laaqueel heard Iakhovas's thundering battle cry over the din of war even as she twisted from the path of an attacking ixitxachitl. The malenti priestess swept the barbed net from her hip and threw it at her attacker as it spun gracefully around in the ocean.

The weighted net flared out and enveloped the ixitxachitl, sinking barbed hooks into the creature's flesh. It screamed in rage and pain. Even as the net tangled its wings, Laaqueel drove her trident deep into its body. The ixitxachitl shuddered through its death throes.

"Most Sacred One, let me be of assistance."

Turning, Laaqueel found one of the sahuagin warriors from the outer seas swimming toward her, his movements already registering on her lateral lines. Bleeding from several wounds inflicted by the ixitxachitl fangs, the sahuagin warrior offered her another net. Bits of flesh clung to the coral and steel barbs woven into the strands.

"I will strip the net from this one," the warrior offered. "King Iakhovas will have need of you. The demon rays are attempting to rally their forces."

Laaqueel accepted the net and swam for Iakhovas. She gazed around the ocean floor, studying the buildings that comprised the ixitxachitl community of Ilkanar. Ageadren was the closest ixitxachitl city, but Ilkanar was an outpost town. The tallest structure in the community was the temple, built of coral and stones by the locathah, merrow, and koalinth slaves the ixitxachitls kept.

Iakhovas stood at the forefront of the invading sahuagin forces, ripping apart his foes with trident and claws. Corpses littered the city, including ixitxachitls and the slaves who hadn't quickly chosen sides. Iakhovas's wrath was unforgiving. As the invading army rolled through the resistance put up by the demon rays, the slaves scattered in full revolt, driven before sahuagin who would kill them if they tried to flee.

The oceans' currents darkened with blood.

Even as she drifted down and took her place at Iakhovas's side, he glanced up at her. Gold gleamed in his eye socket.

"Ah, little malenti, come to join the celebration?" he said, holding a bloody chunk of dead ixitxachitl out to her.

"I came to fight at your side."

A cruel smile twisted his lips in both his human and sahuagin guises as they flickered back and forth in Laaqueel's vision.

"As you can see," he said, "there are many who believe in me these days-many ready to fight at my side. I searched for believers, little malenti, and they have found me."

Feeling the spongy surface below the layer of sand at her feet, Laaqueel drove her trident down. Blood spewed up and the ixitxachitl crouched in hiding there flapped in pain. The malenti priestess slit its belly with a talon and watched it swim away to die.

Sharks and sahuagin finned by overhead, chasing all that fled before them that weren't of their kind. It was a whirling maelstrom of slaughter, a true vision of sahuagin power and savagery the like of which Laaqueel had never seen before. By rights, by her heritage, she should have been in bliss-or in a blood frenzy as so many of her brethren were-but she wasn't.

"What about you, little malenti?" Iakhovas asked. "Why do you fight?"

"I live to serve you," she answered. Fear filled her as she gazed at him, knowing he had the power to see through her and the lies she told.

"But do you believe?" Iakhovas asked. "Do you believe in me, or do you fight only to save your own life?"

Laaqueel gazed around them, aware of the fighting taking place. Sahuagin invaded buildings on either side of the thoroughfare, yanking ixitxachitls out and putting them to death where they found them. The slaves died as well. There was no rescue.

Even though the temple stood in the city, very few ixitx-achitl priests stood against them. The sahuagin priestesses fought them spell for spell and emerged victorious even if they had to swim over the bodies of those who'd gone before them.

"I believe," Laaqueel replied, "as best as I am able."

She waited, thinking he was going to strike her down where she stood. Over the past few days, he'd been distant from her while plotting his intricate conspiracies.

"In Sekolah or in me?" he asked.

"In my eyes," Laaqueel answered, "you and the Shark God are equal. How could I believe in Sekolah's teaching if I didn't believe in you?"

If the Shark God had cared at all about what she did or thought, the malenti knew she'd have been struck down in that moment for the words of sacrilege she spoke. Instead, she prepared herself for the blow she fully expected from Iakhovas.

He gazed at her for a long time, as if the battle raging around them didn't exist. A disemboweled ixitxachitl drifted by them. Iakhovas angrily swept it away. His living eye showed malignant black as he surveyed her.

"You have changed, little malenti."

"We are all changed."

"I have grown and become more powerful."

"And I have become less so?" Laaqueel asked.

"No, it's not that…" Iakhovas waved the sahuagin warriors behind them onward. He paused to glance briefly at the carnage that was reaped in his name, grinning broadly enough to reveal the fangs that filled his sahuagin mouth as well as his human one. "It's just that I've never seen you without vision."

"I don't understand," Laaqueel responded.

"When I first met you all those years ago," Iakhovas said, "when I first saw you, I saw the hunger for power within you. It filled every fiber of your being, little malenti, a force so wild and powerful that for a moment I was afraid- tempted to kill you outright instead of using you."

Laaqueel stood in the middle of the battle waiting patiently. There was nothing she could say. Emptiness swallowed her emotions save for a trace of fear that kept her reactions on the edge.

"I thought I could control that hunger," Iakhovas went on, "so I let you live. In mastering you, though you may not see it that way, I shaped and strengthened that hunger in you."