Seven Sorcerers(40)
“No,” I say. “I bring you a gift called truth.” I step closer to her, drawing her gaze lower. The long talons of her fingers curl on either side of me. “Far too long have you wallowed in the sorrow of your own memories. The world you built here died long ago! Yet you can build another. Do not waste your immortality sitting in the dark, lost in a prison of remembrance. Live, Vaazhia! Rise up and discover how fine and beautiful the world has become! I will help you!”
Her rage subsides. She does not weep, but sinks back into her throne. The braziers return to their calm state of illumination. She sighs, sweeping her gaze across the throng of phantom folk who have served her for millennia. Vaazhia’s curse is not to forget, but to remember. I must break her of it. I reach out with the invisible coils of my heart, hoping to reach her own. Eager to make her believe that something other than this futile existence is possible.
“How can I do this?” she asks. Her voice is that of a despairing child.
“Let me–let us–show you how,” I say. “You are of the Old Breed. You can remake yourself as you will. Come and see the world that lives green and golden above you. Fangodrel’s world.” Vaazhia loved Vod’s father Fangodrel, if only for a little while. When he refused to stay with her in this sunken realm, it only confirmed her despair. Yet Fangodrel was but a taste of the world that had moved on without her. I know she longs for more of that sweet flavor.
“There is so much goodness to discover in the world,” Sharadza says. “Light and love and the laughter of children. The gleam of sunlight on water and leaf. The breath of night and the glimmer of stars. So much more…”
Vaazhia sits in silence for a long moment.
The nameless ones collapse into piles of black sand and coarse cloth. They will no longer raid the ships of the Western Flow and the villages of the grassy steppe. They were nothing but mindless drones that served the will and appetites of Vaazhia. Now the lizardess must learn to serve herself.
“Tell me more of Zyung and this war,” she says.
In the coral palace of Indreyah the Mer-Queen we are received without ceremony by a cadre of Sea-Folk guards in scalloped armor. Alua’s flaming sphere has carried us far over the Cryptic Sea, and as we plunged into the blue waters I replaced it with a sphere of sunlight and fresh air. Once I was welcome here, but those days are done.
As we sank into the great chasm and left the aquamarine light behind, Vaazhia asked me a question that I could not answer. “Do you really believe your former lover will aid you in this struggle, Shaper?” The lizardess was blunt. The waters rushed by us in a swirl of bubbles. The purple glow of the anemone forest lay directly below us. Eels and schools of silver fish darted by our sinking globe of light.
“She may hold little love for me these days,” I said. “But she is quite fond of Sharadza.”
Alua and Vaazhia turned to the Daughter of Vod. Vaazhia had reduced her size to stand no taller than any of us. Her crimson orbs blinked with curiosity.
“I once visited her palace,” said Sharadza, “to reclaim the bones of my dead father. Later she aided me against a sorcerer who had imprisoned me.”
“You have lived a most interesting life for one so young,” said the lizardess. Of course, she had lingered for an eon in the cellars of a dead city. Having Sharadza as a companion would be good for her. The Daughter of Vod had given me a new passion for life, and I was sure she would do the same for Vaazhia. If we all survived the coming of Zyung and retained our individual natures.
We descended among a multitude of gliding sharks, rays, and squids toward the avenues of the coral city. Spires and domes glimmered below like constructs hewn from monolithic emeralds. Shades of crimson, turquoise, and azure danced amid the incandescent marine gardens. The Sea-Folk swam thickly here, where streets and plazas were home to phosphorescent anemones, gardens of kelp, and groves of deepwater flora.
Curious crowds of the silver-scaled folk encircled us, staring with the amber orbs of their eyes. The sharp tines along the middle of their backs and on the tops of their heads twitched nervously. Some brandished tridents or harpoons of whale bone. Indreyah’s people were a cautious breed; the people of the dry lands had exploited the ocean’s riches for as long as there had existed divers, swimmers, and seagoing vessels. The Sea-Folk had good reason to fear the air-breathers of the world. I could not begrudge their lack of hospitality.
As we sank into the palace courtyard, pitted walls of crimson coral rose to hide the city from us. Indreyah’s finny warriors came forth to surround us with the points of their fishbone spears. Their captain rode on the back of a harnessed black shark and carried a crystalline blade. He spoke in the bubbling language of the Sea-Folk, and among our group only I understood him.