Swimming several yards below the surface, the creature stared back at him.

  It was somewhat human in form, but slender as an elf, with dark blue skin and long, webbed fingers and toes. A proud black dorsal fin ran from its hairless brow all the way down to its rump, and some sort of white pendant hung around its neck. Round, dark goggles shielded its eyes. Though Anton had lived his entire life in the environs of the Sea of Fallen Stars, he didn’t know much about the various sentient races dwelling beneath the waves. Few of his species did. But if he wasn’t mistaken, his unwanted companion was a shalarin.

  Whatever it was, he’d apparently attracted its attention at some point during the night, because he’d first noticed it gliding beneath him shortly after sunrise. Initially, given that shalarins didn’t have an especially sinister reputation, he’d hoped it would help him. When it failed to do so spontaneously, he’d tried to entreat it via pantomime.

  The creature hadn’t responded in any way, and he’d wondered if it meant him harm. Though more adept with a sword or dagger, he had a small talent for sorcery, and had considered striking first with one of his spells. Ultimately, though, he’d decided he’d do better to save them for a moment when he knew for a fact he was in peril.

  Often, though, the urge to lash out returned, simply because the shalarin’s lurking presence was unsettling.

  At times, it even felt like mockery of his plight. What did the cursed creature want, anyway? Was it simply curious to see how long it would take him to die? If so… well, in the course of his duties, Anton had witnessed more than his share of brutality, but this sort of patient, passive cruelty was something new in his experience.

  The sun hammered down until he wished it would set, even though once it did, no passing ship could possibly see him. He fought the impulse to drink saltwater and drowsed for a bit. Then he gave a start and cast wildly about.

  For a second, he couldn’t tell what had jolted him back to full wakefulness. Maybe he’d simply felt himself slipping off the float again.

  No. After hours of hovering close, the shalarin was swimming away. That was what had snagged his attention, even in his somnolent state.

  Had the creature finally gotten bored with watching him suffer? His instincts warned him no, and they were evidently right, for after the shalarin had gone a ways, it turned and oriented on him once more. It was still interested but had apparently deemed it prudent to put more distance between them.

  Was it because something was about to happen to him? He looked around, saw nothing, then dunked his face in the water to better scan the blue-green depths below. A soft, rounded thing resembling a huge sack shot up at him like a stone from a sling. Long tentacles lined with suckers trailed behind it, undulating as if to help propel it along.

  After a moment of stunned incomprehension, Anton realized it was an octopus, albeit the biggest specimen he’d ever seen. Indeed, more than big enough to make a meal of a lone man afloat.

  Heart pounding, he reviewed his modest store of spells. Some were of no use in combat, while others wouldn’t function underwater. But a pulse of pure force might work. He fumbled the necessary talisman-a bit of ram’s horn-from his pocket and swept it through the proper arcane figure. Praying that his raw throat and thick tongue could still enunciate the words with the precision required, he recited the incantation.

  Power sang like a note from a crystal bell. Visible as a streak of rippling distortion, magic shot through the water. It bashed a momentary dent in the octopus’s softness and scraped its hide.

  The cephalopod recoiled. You see, Anton thought, I’m dangerous. Go eat something else.

  The octopus hesitated for another moment then evidently decided its wound was inconsequential. At any rate, it hurtled onward.

  Anton yanked his dagger, the straight, double-edged steel blade coated in gleaming silver, from its sheath. He’d dropped his sword when he’d first gone into the water, lest its weight drag him down. But at least he’d retained this weapon, and it would double as the necessary focus for another spell.

  He recited the complex rhyme and sketched the proper sign. The dagger point carved the sigil in scarlet light on the air. A second knife, glowing red like the rune, shimmered into existence in front of the octopus and stabbed into its bulbous body.

  Surely now it would turn away or, failing that, linger to try and fight the shining animate knife instead of charging on to close with Anton.

  But that was not the case. It veered past the red blade and raced upward. The flying dagger pursued and might get in another jab or two before it winked out of existence, but Anton doubted that would be enough to save him.

  The shalarin drifted, kicking and stroking lazily, watching.

  All but certain he lacked the time, Anton nonetheless tried to materialize a second blade of force. In his haste, though, he stumbled over the mystical words, botching the spell, and the gathering power dissipated in useless stink and sizzle. Then tentacles came writhing and swirling to grab him.

  He struggled to avoid them, but his scrap of timber was too small; he had no space to maneuver or retreat. He managed to drag his entire body up out of the water, to kneel atop the float, for an instant rocking and bobbing precariously. Then a loop of tentacle found his ankle, yanked tight as a garrote, and wrenched him under the surface.

  Whether it realized or not, the octopus only needed to hold him under until he ran out of air, and with more of its tentacles whirling to wrap around him, it had an excellent chance of doing so. Floundering, his leg already snared, he had no hope of avoiding them all. He had to concentrate on keeping his dagger arm free.

  He twisted and whipped it about to keep it from being entangled. Ringed suckers cut him as they gripped the rest of his body, and he jerked at the pain. The tentacles constricted like pythons, threatening to squeeze the precious, dwindling air from his lungs.

  Round, dark little eyes staring, the octopus pulled him toward its jagged, gaping beak. He hacked and sliced at its arms. The dagger’s maker had enchanted the edge to a supernatural keenness, and it bit deep, maiming the creature’s limbs and severing one entirely.

  Still it seemed unlikely to prove sufficient. But as the octopus hauled him within reach of its mouth, its whole body spasmed, and the flailing tentacles loosened. Anton tried to squirm upward out of the coils.

  The tentacle wrapped around his ankle still had a grip on him and anchored him in place. He bent over, sawed at it until the tough, dense flesh parted, then swam upward.

  Suddenly the need to breathe overpowered him. He expelled the stale contents of his lungs in an explosion of bubbles and helplessly inhaled. At the same instant, though, his head broke the surface.

  More luck: the float was still within reach. Wheezing and praying he’d hurt the octopus badly enough to discourage it, he struggled toward the wood. He set the dagger atop the small platform then started to drag himself up.

  A tentacle wrapped around his leg and jerked downward. The sudden motion rocked the float. The knife tumbled off the edge and vanished into the sea.

  Panic rose, threatening to swamp his reason, and he strained to push it down and think. He didn’t have the strength to keep the octopus from dragging him back under water, and he didn’t have a weapon anymore, either. How, then, could he save himself?

  There was one way, maybe. But it required him to free up a hand.

  It was hard enough to hold on with both of them. As soon as he let go with the right, the strain on the left, and the arm attached to it, became all but unbearable, and he cried out at the sudden jerk.

  But the pull didn’t break his grip, at least not instantly. He must have done the octopus some harm, after all, enough to weaken it a little. Perhaps, then, he had the seconds he needed.

  He groaned another incantation and twisted his right hand through an arcane pass. The extremity took on a pale silvery hue, and the fingertips lengthened into talons. A keen ridge, a blade to slash and hack, pushed out from the underside, from the base of the little finger to the wrist.

  When the transformation was complete, he drew a deep breath, released the float, and allowed his tormentor to drag him back under the water.

  He cut and tore at the octopus, severing two more of its limbs. It hauled him to its beak, and he slashed that, too, and the soft, pulsing flesh around it. He ripped and sliced, straining for one of the dark little eyes—

  The world exploded into blackness. For a moment he didn’t understand; then he realized the cephalopod had discharged its ink. Its tentacles released him, and he felt a spurt of pressure. The creature was jetting away. It had had enough.

  He struggled back to the surface and, as his hand melted back into its normal shape, back onto the float. The shalarin regarded him for a moment, then turned and swam away.

  “That’s right,” he wheezed, “you see, I am dangerous. You’d better not hang around, or…”

  Oh, to Baator with it. Even if the shalarin had been able to hear and understand, he was too spent and in too much pain to finish the threat or do much of anything else. He knew he should examine his new wounds and check to see if the old one had started bleeding again, but it simply wasn’t in him. He could only lie still, trying not to cry or whimper too much, with his hands and feet dangling in the water.

  Though he somehow avoided sliding or rolling off the float again, he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Since oblivion washed away misery, he welcomed it. It might well mean the end was near, and during his lucid moments, he supposed that would be merciful. He was too stubborn to put an end to his suffering. He’d proved it twice today already. But the sun and sea might soon do it for him.

  He closed his sore eyes. Just for a moment, he thought, but when he opened them, the stars were out and the water was black. He wondered if, without the sunlight baking him, he might last a few more hours and couldn’t make up his dazed, wretched mind whether to hope for it or not. Then he noticed a crested, oval-shaped object sticking up, beyond the float but almost within arm’s reach.

  It was the shalarin’s head. The creature had returned and ventured close. Perhaps it reckoned he was finally weak enough to attack without any risk to itself.

  The thought stirred the dregs of the resolve he generally felt in the face of danger. He tried to rear up so he could use his hands for self-defense but found he lacked the strength. All he could was flop around a little, like a dying fish in the bottom of a boat.

  The shalarin surged up onto the float. The wooden surface rocked, but its new occupant centered its weight before it could overturn.

  The creature gripped Anton. He struggled to shake it off but couldn’t manage that, either.

  The shalarin rolled him onto his back. They were now closer than they’d ever been before, with no distorting layers of water between them, and despite the dark, he picked out details he hadn’t discerned hitherto. Slim as it was, it had a certain subtle fullness in the area that would be a woman’s bosom, as well as a breadth to its hips, that told him it was a she. Gill slits opened along her collarbone and above her ribs. A round mark-the paucity of light prevented him from making out the color-adorned the center of her brow just below the beginning of the fin. The pendant was a skeletal hand-human, by the looks of it-and she also wore a belt around her narrow waist. Attached were several pouches.

  She unlaced one of the bags; extracted something small and roughly cubical in shape; and pressed it to his dry, cracked lips. He found the action mildly reassuring. She probably wouldn’t try to poison a man who was already dying, for what would be the point? The action suggested that, inexplicable as it seemed, she’d finally decided to help him.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to understand that his most pressing need was water, not food. He wondered if his swollen throat could even swallow anything solid without choking. But he’d try. Maybe the pellet, whatever it was, would help him a little, anyway.

  When he sank his teeth into it, it burst into fragments and a copious quantity of oil. The liquid tasted so bitter that in other circumstances, he might have spit it out. But when he swallowed some, it assuaged his thirst like water.

  He greedily consumed it and the solid matter-some sort of preserved fish?-too. “Thank you,” he gasped.

  The shalarin fed him two more cubes then produced a different sort of pellet. It was rounder, tasteless, and as tough to chew as the stalest ship’s biscuit he’d ever sampled. Still, hoping it would do him as much good as the other morsels had, he gnawed until it softened and broke apart.

  As soon as he swallowed it, the shalarin gripped him with her long, webbed fingers. She half rolled, half shoved him toward the edge of the float.

  “No!” he said. “Wait!”

  But she wouldn’t relent. He struggled to resist and in other circumstances might have succeeded. He was an able wrestler and brawler, and his brawny frame surely outweighed her spindly body. But while the pellets had snatched him back from the brink of death, he was still weak as a baby, and his attempts to grapple and punch were pathetically ineffective.

  The float tilted beneath him. Clasping him, the shalarin rolled down the incline, and they tumbled into the sea together. Kicking, she dragged him downward.

  He kept struggling but still couldn’t break her grip. After a minute the burning in his chest demanded release. He let out the breath he’d clenched in his lungs and gulped in water instead.

  It felt different than inhaling air. Water was heavier, more substantial, in his chest. But the sensation wasn’t unpleasant, and more important, he wasn’t drowning. Something the shalarin had fed him-the round morsel, he suspected-enabled him to breathe. Maybe it helped him to ignore the heightening pressure, too, considering that he didn’t need to pop his ears.

  But the magic didn’t help him see. As he and the shalarin descended, the benighted waters rapidly became impenetrable to human sight. He couldn’t even make out his captor hauling him along. It reinforced his sense of utter helplessness-not that it needed reinforcing-and he simply hung limp in the shalarin’s grasp and allowed her to do as she would.

  It was cold in the depths, though not insupportably so. Perhaps he had the pellets to thank for that as well. He had the feeling he was drifting in and out of awareness, but the unchanging blackness made it difficult to be certain.

  Finally, a soft glow flowered in the murk. Below him stood a vast, intricate riot of coral, portions of it shining with its own inner light. Spires rose, or partly rose, from the tangled reefs like trees mired in parasitic vines. Anton might have assumed the city, half buried as it was, was an uninhabited ruin, except that the bluish cryscoral wasn’t the only source of illumination. Lamps shined in windows and along the boulevards. Altogether, the lights sufficed to reveal the tiny forms of the residents swimming to and fro.

  Fascinated, Anton wished the shalarin would swim faster. He wanted to get closer and see more. But he passed out before he could.

  Testing his strength and stamina, Anton swam back and forth and up and down at the end of the tether binding his ankle to the marble couch. The leathery cord reminded him unpleasantly of the octopus’s tentacles dragging him down.

  Fortunately, barring a ring-shaped scar or two to go with all his others, nasty memories were all he retained from his ordeal. He was whole again, thanks to the shalarin. When he’d seen the skeletal hand hanging from her neck, he’d suspected she was a priestess of Umberlee, and she had in fact employed a cleric’s healing prayers to mend his damaged body.

  What she hadn’t done was talk to him. Not once, no matter how he entreated her. Such indifference made him suspect she intended him for sacrifice or slavery. She was, after all, a servant of the Bitch Queen, goddess of drownings, shipwrecks, and all manner of deaths at sea, a power notoriously malign.

  But if she did mean him ill, he didn’t intend to meet his fate like a sheep placidly awaiting the butcher’s pleasure. He didn’t know if he could truly escape, but now that he’d recovered his vigor, maybe he could at least free himself from the rope and find out what lay beyond the nondescript room in which the shalarin had imprisoned him.

  Floating in the center of the chamber, he turned his attention to the complex knot securing the cord to his ankle. He’d spent hours picking at it, but it remained as tight as ever. Evidently it bore some enchantment.

  With luck, his own magic would counter it. He murmured a charm, marveling once again that he could speak as plainly as if he were on land. In fact, he could function here without much difficulty of any kind. He saw clearly and moved quickly, without the water hindering him. Plainly, the enchantment must have been responsible for that as well, and he wondered if such conditions only prevailed within this one building or if the entire submerged city was equally accommodating.

  The knot squirmed and untied itself. He smiled, swam to the doorway, and peeked out into the larger room beyond.

  As he’d suspected, it was a temple of Umberlee, dominated by a towering statue of the Queen of the Depths herself. Bigger than a giant, clad in her high-collared cape and seashell ornaments, the deity had risen from the waves to smash a cog with her trident. Sharks cut through the water to seize the mariners toppling overboard.

  Smaller sculptures, representations of predatory sea creatures and hideous things that might be aquatic demons, lurked in alcoves. Mosaics depicting Umberlee’s battles against Selune, Chauntea, and other gods adorned the high ceiling and walls. Heaped offerings covered the several altars and overflowed onto the floor.

  It was all rather magnificent in a grim sort of way, but somewhat surprisingly, at the moment no one else was here to tend or marvel at the splendor. Anton hesitated then swam to the nearest of the altars to see if some worshiper had given Umberlee a weapon.