"I think so too," the malenti stated. "There was much in there about our communities as they were thousands of years ago." Actually, the community life described in the book hadn't changed much even now, though the places that were described were no longer on any sahuagin maps Laaqueel had ever seen. "I found among the myths of Sekolah a story that captured my eye and my heart."

"It was not about Sekolah?" Viiklee asked. She sat watching, her black eyes gleaming with interest. She had crept much closer to share in the tale.

"No. The book was written by a man named Ronassic of Sigil. He'd already documented other ocean life and marine cultures. He carried forth a treatise concerning the origins of the malenti as being a bridge between the sahuagin race and the cursed sea elves. He held that one evolved from the other, suggesting that sahuagin were created from the time the first sea elves took to the oceans. I find that heretical. I believe that the malenti are Sekolah's chosen sacrifices, the claws to lay bare the throats of the enemies of the sahuagin."

Neither of the other priestesses saw fit to disagree.

"In his book," Laaqueel went on, "he gets a great number of things wrong, but in the creation myths concerning the Great Shark and how the sahuagin were given to the seas, he mentioned another being of power."

"Daganisoraan?" Saanaa asked.

"No," Laaqueel answered, pitching her voice low to fully hold the attention of her audience. Daganisoraan was a common figure in sahuagin tales, featured as both hero and villain depending on the myth. "This was before even Daganisoraan's time, and though I searched the book, the only name I ever found given to him was One Who Swims With Sekolah."

"Maybe," Viiklee said, "One Who Swims With Sekolah was the first sahuagin."

"No." Laaqueel shook her head. "He was someone… something… very powerful."

"Why haven't we heard more about him?" Saanaa asked.