Page 72 of Leviathan's Song
“The contract wasbetween thecounciland herparents,” Côvon interjected angrily during my discussion with Muriel the following afternoon. I’d known the mer leader of the Alliance for less than an hour and already he was trying my patience.
Rafe and Silas had delivered the golems half an hour ago, meeting us in an open field to the north of Whitewave, and had beaten a hasty retreat back into the wilds. Too many people had insisted on joining us here, and between the amount of unwanted company and the distance from the rest of their family groups, they hadn’t been able to return fast enough.
I was already frustrated about my friends feeling uncomfortable and overwhelmed, and now Côvon was demanding that he be in charge of the guardians looming at the edge of the meadow. They’d insisted on joining me for the delivery—Côvon, the leader of the mer, and two other mer military officers, Muriel, Arvad, the sprite we met at the courthouse fountain, and one other sprite. I was making a conscious effort not to dwell on how easily one of my golems could squish an annoying mer.
While still being taller than me, the mer that joined us were considerably smaller than Levi. Lanky and lean, they had an almost serpentine quality about them, with magic that echoed the hidden, craggy depths of the ocean. They walked on two legs, and were clothed with woven seaweed and seal pelts, something I wondered about Muriel’s feelings on. Their skin was varying shades of mottled blues, greys, and greens, and they had a noticeable ridge down the backs. Another ridge formed a row of spines up the backs of their arms, and some long quills covered the tops of their heads in place of hair. I knew from pictures that, when they shifted to their aquatic form, the spines sprouted long fins. They also carried venom, though I didn’t think it was actually lethal.
Either way, Levi didn’t seem to want them to get too close to me. His jaw had been set the entire time, and even now his hand hovered behind me as if he wanted to snatch me against him and haul me away at any moment.
I sighed and kept my voice even, giving Côvon a slow blink as I answered his interruption. “Yes, and Arvad is a member of the council.” Arvad stood off to the side, obviously unimpressed with Côvon’s attitude but entirely unsurprised by it.
Côvon didn’t even bother to acknowledge my response, addressing Muriel as he replied. “I’m the leader, the head of the council, therefore the golems should be assigned to me.”
“Can you reach The Deep?” I asked him dubiously. I thought one of the main issues of their invasion was that no one was able to withstand the pressure that far below the surface to help. “How are you planning to deliver the guardians if you can’t actually get to the city?”
The spines on the back of Côvon’s head bristled and began to raise as he turned to look at me, and Levi let out a long, low hiss that one of the other mer returned. Levi’s magic lashed out like a whip, causing Côvon to take a small step back. I was so startled by the sound coming out of him that I turned to glance at him before he subtly nudged me to direct my attention back to the others. I’d never heard him make a sound like that, and the low rattle the other mer included with it made my skin prickle with fear.
Côvon studied Levi for a long moment, the first time he’d paid him any attention since we’d arrived, before answering my questions. “I will take these guardians to the edge of our territory and then direct it to The Deep. It will follow my instructions, yes?”
I shook my head. “We insist that they be under the control of someone who will be present in their general location in case they need on-site instructions.”
His spines bristled again as he considered this. “Then they will follow me to the edge of the sprite’s waters, and I will pass them over to Arvad then.” Côvon crossed his arms, and I couldn’t help glancing at the spines lining his triceps before I turned to Muriel, who rolled her eyes slightly and shrugged.
“As you say,” I lied, and pushed power into Domm first, making his glowing runes brighten slightly as I re-laid its instructional guidelines. It would follow Arvad, not Côvon, but would take some limited commands from Côvon if asked. It would defend The Deep from any kelpies within its radius for a maximum of two lunar cycles, unless relieved from duty by Arvad sooner.
It took less energy than the initial calling had a week ago, and so I was able to switch to Leothen almost immediately without needing to catch my breath. As soon as I was done, both golems stepped forward to await verbal commands, and everyone but Levi stepped back.
I used the distraction to bend quickly to Arvad’s ear. “Stay close to Côvon until he hands you over the guardians,” I whispered. His eyes met mine as I straightened. I hoped it wouldn’t make a difference or even be noticed, but this power-play nonsense irked me.
Côvon was saying something to Muriel, and turned to leave with the other mer, heading toward the shore. Arvad stayed behind briefly, then flitted up to press something small into my hand before flying away with the other sprite to follow the mer. I watched my family’s guardians pace obediently behind them, slowly disappearing into the night.
I didn’t need to look at my hand to know a heartstone shard was nestled in my palm. Against my skin, they had a different kind of energy than any other stone.
Muriel sighed and dug in a bag she carried to pull out a thick stack of papers. “I have your contract for creating the new golem, along with your payment agreement. It wasn’t as much as I asked for, but it was the best I could negotiate.”
I thumbed through the contract, noting the payment amount was insultingly low for a project of this magnitude, but schooling my expression. It didn’t matter, since I wouldn’t be taking it anyway.
She continued, “They’ve requested that you meet them at the address provided on the first page there. It’s a shipyard, with a warehouse where they’ve been hauling up materials for your construct.”
That was news to me. They already had something planned?
“Oh yes,” she said, answering the question clearly written on my face. “They found a behemoth skeleton sometime back, they said. A leviathan, I think?”
Well, isn’t that just fantastic.
I must not have kept my distastefrom showing because Muriel hesitated for a moment before stating softly, “I really do appreciate what you’re doing for the sprites.”
* * *
The mer had been industrious.I had to wonder if they’d been collecting deadfall from the massive leviathan long before The Deep was ever attacked. Perhaps they had a dowser, someone like Val Harrington who specialized in locating hidden objects.
They’d even brought in some lorelei as contractors to do the heavy lifting. I’d never met a lorelei before, as they were a race of people even more rare than the mer—cousins that had interbred with orcs millennia ago. They shared some physical traits with the mer, but the size difference between them was staggering, making them look more like semi-aquatic orcs.
I’d spent the early morning surveying the shipyard, where the spinal column and the rib cage were being sorted and reconstructed. Leviathans were rather eel-like anyway so there wasn’t really much more to them than that and a skull. Maybe some fin bones. Heavy fog made it impossible to see the project in full, but the workers seemed unbothered by the lack of visibility, calling out to each other in loud, ringing tones in a language that sounded almost song-like.
Levi and I were in the warehouse, where the massive skull and some of the more fiddly bits were being kept. There were enormous bones stacked absolutely everywhere.
I was very much not over my aversion to using bones in a construct. Levi was doing his level-best not to smile every time I grumbled about it beingtoo closeto necromancy or that it wasdisrespectful to the creature they came from.However, there was a case to be made that these people had already put in a massive amount of physical effort amassing these materials, and it would also speed the process up considerably, having the beast constructed as it would have been in life. It was always better to mimic nature when possible, and not needing to ‘reinvent the wheel’ meant I would spend less time than it would take designing a new one. It didn’t make me any happier to be using them, but I tried to remember this project wasn’t about me, and that it would be going toward protection of people who needed it desperately.Was this personal growth or decaying moral standards?
