Page 19 of Connal

Help me. Help.

Duxor swam around the broken hull, listening until he found the pocket of air where the mortal now thrashed and choked. He pulled aside some planks until he saw kicking legs, and grabbed one to pull the male through the gap. Half-drowned already, the skinny fisherman stared at him with wide eyes. He seized him by his scrawny throat, and then shot up with him to the surface

“Mercy, maister,” the mortal said as soon as he coughed the water out of his lungs. “I shall serve you all my life, only spare me.”

Killing such strays gave Duxor much sport, but the unusual proposition gave him pause. Merrick had transformed Jamaran from a mortal for saving his life, and the garrison commander remained utterly faithful to the king. This idiot fisherman could do the same, and if he found and transformed more of his kind…

Duxor clamped the mortal against him and swam for one of the islets half-inside the mist boundary, where he could escape the patrollers and their nosy commander. He dragged the half-dead man into the shallows, and then pulled him up and clamped a hand around his throat.

“Should I spare you, you swear to serve me faithfully for the remainder of your life,” he told the landcrawler, who nodded frantically.

The pendant Duxor wore had belonged to his sire, and grew hot as he curled his fingers tightly around it. The spiked edges pierced his hide, causing his purple-hued blood to stream down his forearm. He then smeared it over one of the mortal’s open wounds. The man screamed and writhed, and then something jerked him out of Duxor’s grasp and into the water.

A dark fin cut through the surface of the water just behind the thrashing arms of the landcrawler.

Cursing, Duxor went after them, and saw that a giant white-mouth had sheared off the fisherman’s hand, and now grabbed him by the legs. He stopped pursuing them to watch the shark devour the mortal, as transformation would not restore his ruined appendages. The violet stain of his own blood spread through the currents around the dying fisherman and the fish, growing almost black as it engulfed them.

Duxor saw bursts of golden power arc through the inky cloud like lightning. How can he transform like that? He would have to drag the mortal’s remains onto the sands so whatever was left would quickly die.

The white-mouth emerged from the transformation cloud, but it no longer held the fisherman by his legs. It had somehow become part of the mortal, sprouting blue and white arms and legs from its body, with its tail elongated and attached to the fisherman’s lower spine. One of the arms no longer ended in a hand but a stump. White underbelly hide now covered the man’s chest, and bulged with human and unhuman muscle. Its cold black eyes had changed in color and shape to more resemble the fisherman’s, and while it still had the features of a shark, its bald head had shrunk down and turned unto a wedge atop the mortal’s neck.

The transformed creature stared back at him and began gnashing its spiky teeth. At the same time a strangely garbled sound came from it, forming mortal speech that Duxor heard inside his mind. What did you to me?

Using his pendant to harness a nearby current and funnel it between his hands, Duxor formed a water blade. I attempted to save your worthless life, but a shark took you in mid-change. Now I shall end you.

Please, let me live, Maister. The monster sank down until its feet touched the silt, and then bowed as landcrawlers did. I shall serve you faithfully as I swore.

As the weapon grew as hard as steel in his hands, Duxor regarded the thing he had created. No Selseus had ever transformed a creature of the sea, for even if it were female it could not spawn with them. None had ever attempted to cross a mortal with an animal in transformation. Yet this ghastly thing seemed to still think like a man despite being fused with the shark.

A small fish swam between them, and the monster snatched it from the water, swallowing it whole. Its soft brown eyes locked with Duxor’s as if ashamed.

Forgive me, Maister. I dinnae ken why, but I’m so hungry.

He placed his webbed hand on the blunt head, and the contact allowed him to delve the thoughts of the bizarre creature. It did think of itself as a mortal, and yet possessed the wordless, primitive instincts of the white-mouth. Hunger consumed it as much as the man’s terror over what had happened to him. It now seemed to view Duxor as some sort of sire.

He nearly ended the monster for daring to regard him thus, and then realized he had, in fact, gifted him with this rebirth.

You shall address me as Lord Duxor, he told the creature. Do not venture into the bay, but stay close to this islet and hunt in the waters here. If any of my people come near enough to see you, hide yourself in the caves at the bottom. Come to me when I call you.

Aye, my lord. The monster swam off.

For a long moment he watched his peculiar creation before he swam back to the settlement. No one waited in his shabby, unkempt dwelling, for Merrick had always denied him a mate. Duxor wondered what the king would think of his monster. Doubtless he would slay the creature and order him staked out in the same spot where his sire had suffocated in the hot, inescapable sun.

Jamaran suddenly entered his dwelling without warning. He stank of the mortal blood and the island. What did you with that drowning man you found?

He gave him a toothy smile. A white-mouth attacked him before I could bring him to shore. The poor mortal is gone.

And before, in the palace? The commander backed him up against a wall of crumbling rock. Did you steal from our king?

Why should I? I serve him loyally, just as you do. Duxor spread his hands. Search the place if you doubt me.

Jamaran insulted him by doing just that, going through every room thoroughly. He found nothing but Duxor’s land weapons and his stores of kelp, which he was obliged to harvest himself, as if he were a female. As he watched the commander it occurred to him that the former mortal shared his misfortune of being unable to secure a mate. Because his body remained partly human he could not spawn a Selseus son. For a moment he was tempted to try to use that to sway Jamaran to his cause, but after a moment he discarded the notion. Because the king had transformed him the commander shared all of his thoughts with Merrick whether he wished to or not.

Mayhap the arrogant prick means to gift him that female the landcrawlers stole anyway, so she may coddle the conceited bastart like a young one.

Jamaran rejoined him in the front chamber. You spoke truth.

Even that you make sound like an accusation, Commander. Duxor inclined his head. Still, I regret giving you any reason to doubt my word, or my loyalty to the throne.