The only one I have ever loved

[Scott of Hyperborea]

[This story is part of the Morimoto Cycle, and will not make sense without having read the previous installments.]

"Wait," said Nereus Rotenaard. "You don't want to kill me. I'm immortal."

Zhaki's eyes went just a little wider, and his form flickered briefly.

"Kill me, and you half the sample size for whatever ungodly experiment you're planning. Maria's pretty good at getting herself out of tight places. Do you really want to lose your only backup?"

"You are immortal?" growled Zhaki. "Does everyone but us know the secret to technomaezjikal immortality?"

"Hey, calm," said Nereus. "We can deal. First, you should..."

Zhaki clenched his fingers together at unnatural angles, and suddenly Nereus was bound by a heavy iron chain. The shapeshifter grunted at the exertion, and briefly inadvertantly lapsed back into his dolphin shape. The change was only momentary, however, and a split second later he was human again.

"You will wait here with the woman. When we reach the reefs of Istvanistan, we will perform the ritual and you will die." He gave an evil clicking laugh and swam away.

"So," Nereus said to Maria, when the magic user had gone.

"So yourself," said Maria. "Let's get out of here."

"We're chained on a tiny island in the middle of a labyrinth surrounded by hostile ancient wizards," said Nereus. "What, exactly, do you think you're going to do."

"I'm gonna piss in their swimming pool," said Maria, and giggled. "Fact, I already did, while you and Zhaki were talking."

"While it has a certain eighth grade fun about it, I'm not sure that's quite sufficient to save the world."

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" asked Maria. "The magic users are weak. Zhaki practically admitted as much. He's the only one I've even seen take human form. My guess is the others have lost too much of their magic to even do that. And you saw what happened when Zhaki tied you up. He briefly turned back into a dolphin. He doesn't have enough magic to maintain his human shape and cast spells at the same time. So all we have to do is force him to divert his magic elsewhere, and he's stuck in dolphin form and not bothering us. Case you've forgotten, my body's full of Jaihan Death Flu. I just pissed some of it out into the water here. The germs spread through the water system of this crab - my guess is it's pretty self-contained. You've got antibodies from...last time. Don't think these dolphins do, and I think they might be just barely human enough to get infected. They use their magic to fight off the disease, we gee tee eff oh, blow up the crab, save the world. All you have to do is get out of these chains and ropes. I trust you can manage?" Maria was already slipping out of her own restraints with a limberness that would do a gymnast proud.

"I can manage," said Nereus. "I've had a long time to learn stuff like this, as you know. He twisted around, contracted just the right muscles, and he was out.

"Thank the gods," said Maria. "Nice to finally work with someone f**king competent. Help me find my gun. It should be down in the water there somewhere."

Nereus felt around blindly until he recovered his own gun and flashlight, both mercifully undamaged. Maria found her own equipment. One of the giant eels wrapped itself around Nereus' leg, and he shot it. The resulting bang shook the room.

"Well, they know we're here," said Nereus, and ran out through a waterlogged corridor, Maria following behind him. They ran without direction or purpose, just trying to put as much distance between themselves and their captivity as they could.

"We're lost," said Maria, after a few minutes of running. "You have any bright ideas?"

"Nope," said Nereus. "There's a pore on the outside of the shell that connects to my ship, but I've got no sense of direction. I don't know where we - "

The corridor abruptly stopped into a mass of undulating exoskeleton. They had reached the soft body of the crab.

"Allow me," said Maria. She held up her gun and fired.

As big as Nereus' weapon was, Maria's seemed to be some sort of special technomaezji creation. Some sort of missile flew through the air, burrowed through the exoskeleton, and detonated. The two were slammed backward by the blast, and then the crab's movement suddenly stopped. Nereus imagined he could feel the crustacean's awful pain coursing through the walls.

"You!" said a voice.

It wasn't Zhaki, but it could have been his brother. He was of the same race - dark skinned, red haired, deep and primitive features. The user made a motion with his hands, and a burst of fire flung through the air at the two Straylighters. But it was weak, and sputtered, and faded entirely before it reached them.

Nereus took his gun and shot the shapeshifter right in the gut. He clutched his stomach and doubled over in pain. Then he flickered, and turned into a dolphin. Then the dolphin flickered, and turned into a man - less majestic than the first, and older. Then a dagger shot with projectile force out of the man's heart. It landed a few feet from Nereus, who picked it up and marveled at it.

The dagger was finely crafted and made of gold. On its scabbard was a stylized picture of a dolphin.

For some reason, Nereus thought of a fairy tale from his own childhood, one that had been long forgotten. There had been a nursery rhyme, something like:

They stabbed him in the breast with the monster's knife
And he became a monster, for the rest of his life.

It started to take on new meaning to him. Maybe it wasn't a fairy tale, but a memory. Maybe the ritual these users had talked about involved ritual sacrifice - killing the body with a magic weapon to free and transform the spirit. He eyed the knife suspiciously. The technomaezji would definitely want a look at it.

"The ritual of Iki'dierc," said Maria, showing that her thoughts had followed the same pathway. "Come on. They've caught our scent. They'll be out in force in a second."

So they ran, Nereus holding the dagger out in front of him, striking at whatever dark things might lunge for him out of the water. Poisonous jellyfish darted and caressed their feet, but there were no more eels, or sharks, or shape-shifting dolphins. Maybe they had finally lost their pursuers.

"Nereus," said Maria, "don't look behind you. But run."

Nereus made the mistake of looking behind him. An entire pod of dolphins was in quick pursuit, and with them were squid, octopi, eels, sharks, and all the other horrors of the deep. And they were gaining.

Maria turned back briefly and fired her gun. Two dolphins dropped. The rest wiggled their fins, and a faint blue cloud appeared in front of them. Maria fired again. It hit the cloud and did nothing.

"There's a blind corner up ahead," said Nereus. "It's our best chance. We can't keep running. I'll hide behind there and make a last stand. You run for my ship and tell them what's going on."

"Why Nereus," said Maria, "you'd give your life for me?"

"Well," said Nereus, "no way you'd stay behind to buy me time. And one of us has got to make it to the ship. Now, for the gods' sake, go!" And they round the corner, only bare seconds from the horde of sea monsters...

...and bumped into a battalion of Yardistani marines. "Fire!" shouted the leader, and a hail of bullets first strained the blue force field and then shattered it. Dolphins, fish, and monsters alike bled and fell under the assault.

"Oh Admiral," said Nereus. "I can't TELL you how glad I am to see you here."

From atop the pile of enemy bodies, a shape arose, and transformed into the now-familiar human form of Zhaki the Dolphin. A bullet struck him. He shrugged it off. "Fools," he said. "My magic is crippled, but not gone. Even so, I can take on the lot of you. Today you will know a memory your people have spent six thousand years repressing: the dangers of angering a user!"

He twisted his hands a hundred eighty degrees, into a contortionist's mudra, and huge blazing comets shot forth from his fingertips. Three of the marines fell down dead, and others ran screaming.

Then a man came forth from the back ranks, directly in the path of the deadly flame. He wore a chunk of green soapstone as a talisman around his neck. The flames parted around him, and like a shield his presence blocked the ranks behind. "My name," he said, "is Ilharas Ly'Technomaezj, chaplain of the Yardistani Marines, and by the power vested in me by the line of Me'Jiliad, Emperors of So-Sara, I declare your magic void."

Zhaki contorted his fingers further, first confidently, then desperately, but nothing happened. The Admiral approached.

"I am Admiral Exhaarat of Yardistan," he said, "and you are under arrest."

"On what grounds?" snarled Zhaki.

Before the admiral could answer, Maria blurted: "Transporting a girl across state lines for immortal porpoises, of course." She grinned.

The awful pun filled Zhaki with rage, and he flung his hands together. From them flowed a great conflagration of fire. Ilharas tore off his soapstone talisman and raised it skyward, where it met the blast. The two stood there, locked in silent battle, until Maria very calmly took her gun and shot Zhaki in the face. He flickered, a golden knife flew out back into the murky darkness of the corridors beyond, and everything went quiet.

"Maria," said Nereus, "if I were you, I would put down that gun very, very slowly."

"Oh, right," said Maria. "I almost forgot that the downside of having the cavalry ride in and save us is that this particular cavalry is out for my head. Ah, Nereus. And after all I've done for you." She put down her gun.

"Right," said Exhaarat. "We've taken quite a bit of damage. I want to get back to Novi Nigrad for repairs as fast as possible. Everyone back on the subs. Duke Rotenaard, I request you take the prisoner aboard the Avenger; you seem to be the only one who knows exactly who she is. When we get back to Yardistan, I want you to debrief me fully.

"That," said Nereus, "would take much longer than you think."

* * *

They stood there, alone, on the deck of the Avenger. To the west, the sun was setting above Mt. Agni, the highest peak of Yardistan a faint blur to starboard. To the east, the Straylight sea and the waters from which they had just risen. A brief intercom announcement that they were on course to reach Novi Nigrad in one hour, and then silence.

"Well," said Maria. "That was fun."

"Did you know about those guys?"

"There were legends, of course. Some of those defenses on Full Circle were against more than just passing Straylight ships. But I didn't think I'd ever meet them in the flesh. Or that they'd have the gall to attack someone associated with the technomaezji. Anyway, I don't know if there are any left. And if there are, I don't think we'll be seeing them again."

"We only killed like a dozen of them."

"I don't think there were many more."

"Zhaki said there was a whole nation of them in the waters around Istvanistan. What kind of crappy nation has only a few dozen people?

"Maybe from a mighty empire like Shireroth we wouldn't understand, but it could happen. And like I said, most of them have lost their magic. They may have human minds now, but they're just normal dolphins. Without opposable thumbs, and without magic, all they can do is swim around and make that evil clicking laughter of theirs."

"It'll do them good. I always liked dolphins. You know, there was a writer once who said dolphins were smarter than humans, because we had invented all sorts of things like factories and nuclear bombs and Shirekeep, and all they did was frolic around in the ocean all day having fun. Maybe if some of those users are forced to stop plotting world domination and start frolicing around in the ocean, they'll become less...less like Zhaki."

"Nah," said Maria. "They won't change. Some things never change. We've been around longer than most. We should know."

"Oh?"

"You know. Human nature. Politics. The Shirerithian flag. Love. That sort of thing."

"And us," Nereus added.

"If you're thinking I'll get down on my knees and plead for my life...if you're hoping that your old enemy will beg and grovel to you because she's so scared of death that she'll do anything to escape...well, you're right. I like life. I'm not nearly done with it. If it's necessary, I'll swear an oath to serve you."

"And then break it as soon as it's convenient. You think I don't know you? The world's not safe with you, Maria."

"Then...then I am to die?"

In answer, Nereus stabbed Maria in the heart. She opened her mouth in shock, and then crumpled to the ground, dead.

And then it started. Bolts of purple lightning shot from her body. The wind rose, and the seas rumbled. The sun turned pale and the sky split in two. The entire world seemed to concentrate upon the heart of Maria Morimoto, and on the gold dolphin-marked dagger stuck within it.

"Maria," shouted Nereus over the din. "For the sake of the world, I can't let you live. For my own sake, I won't kill the only woman I have ever loved. So become a dolphin, and go in peace, and live forever."

Her body began to change, elongating, her legs fusing and becoming a tail. Her nose grew into a bill, her hair fell out. Her eyes opened. And she managed a few last words.

"This isn't over, Nik Raesin."

"My life would be unbearably boring if it was, my dear."

Then Maria turned a backflip over the side of the Avenger, landed in the ocean, and swam away.

"On course to reach Novi Nigrad in forty minutes," said the intercom.

Nereus Rotenaard, Duke of Straylight, went into the cabin. "We're minus one prisoner," he said. "And no, I won't explain why. And somebody get me something to drink."

[Epilogue to be posted later this weekend]

[Andreas the Wise]

Finally discovered this subplot of yours, and then found the others ones, read them, then reread this one. Wonderful as always, Scott.