The Coral Kingdom

11

"A week out from Corwell and they find us!" stormed Brandon, pacing back and forth in the Princess of Moonshae's forehull.

In the stern, Robyn still stood like a statue, facing the sail, the canvas sheet billowed taut as ever, propelling the longship through the waters at a churning pace. Far behind now but still clinging to the long white trail of the vessel's wake came the two broad rafts and their clamoring passengers.

"Terrible luck, I know, but at least-" Alicia started to speak.

"Luck? There's no luck about it!" Brandon snapped, whirling toward her and interrupting. "They found us, somehow-here, eight hundred miles from the Moonshaes, in the middle of the Trackless Sea!"

Alicia glowered at him, but her anger was rooted in embarrassment. He was right, of course.

"There are ways a skilled sorcerer could locate us wherever we were," pointed out Keane.

"Did you see any sign of magic in that attack?" shot back the Prince of Gnarhelm.

"No."

"It's not like the sea creatures to use magic." Brandon's tone modulated somewhat, as if he suddenly remembered that he was surrounded by friends, not enemies. "And if they don't use it to attack, I can't imagine they've got wizards sitting around spying on us."

"What do you suspect, then?" demanded Alicia.

"I don't know," the captain admitted with a shrug. He looked around, at the casks and crates and seabags that lined the center of the longship's hull. "It's possible they might have placed something on board, some object that draws them like a beacon. I don't know how big it would be or even what it would look like, but it's all that I can think of at the moment."

They spent the next six hours tearing the Princess of Moonshae's contents apart while the rafts drifted farther to the rear, never quite disappearing over the horizon. Every crate, every container of any kind was opened and examined. Crew members sifted flour from barrel to barrel and drained each water cask into another through a fine screen mesh. As to the search of individual crewmen, of course, every man was left to his own possessions-all the northmen and the Ffolk accompanying the expedition had been selected with loyalty as the top consideration.

All this time Robyn stood in rapt concentration, and the wind summoned by the goddess propelled the longship forward. The druid queen resisted any attempts to support her, shrugging off the few hands that came close. Her eyes were open, staring at the sail but focused on something much farther away.

"Nothing," Alicia concluded disgustedly after the search of the longship's bow was completed. She and Brigit had coordinated that scrutiny, and now the pair leaned on the rail, watching the gray-green water slip past a few feet below.

"I heard the captain talking," the elfwoman noted. "He said that if we can make it to nightfall, we should be able to slip away from them-and your mother can rest, as long as there's any breeze at all."

"I hope so," replied the princess, with a look at the sun. It was early evening, but the yellow orb was at least a couple of hours away from the horizon. And here, on the flat northern sea, she remembered that the daylight lasted for an hour or more after sunset. For a while, they stood in silence, unconsciously looking to the west-toward Evermeet, or least to where they imagined the elvenhome to be.

"Brigit. ." Alicia looked down, wondering about the future, wanting to plan a known course to her father's rescue, though of course this was impossible. "I've been wondering about Evermeet. What's it like? Who rules there?"

"It is a wondrously beautiful place, dotted with clear lakes, covered with broad stretches of forest. It is also the largest, most populous nation of elves in all the Realms." Brigit turned to Alicia to make her point. "In fact, while elven realms in the outer lands are usually ruled by matriarchs or lords, Evermeet is ruled by a queen, the only true monarch in elvendom."

"Does she rule alone?"

"For the most part. She has many councilors, it is said, and a council of matrons acts as her advisers. I have heard that she is not afraid, however, to ignore their advice and make a decision on her own."

"When we get there, what will you say? Do you think the elves of Evermeet will help us?" Alicia wondered. "Or are there too many who feel as Erashanoor, that we humans are the enemy?"

"There are others more. . open-minded," Brigit allowed, and then she laughed. "And there's no telling what your mother will accomplish, if she has the chance to talk to the queen."

"How can we be sure she'll get that chance?"

Brigit smiled, her face sympathetic. "With the determination of humans like you and Hanrald to back her up, I wouldn't be surprised to see it," the elfwoman said.

"I wonder if we can persuade them to help us-for the elves' own interests," Alicia questioned.

"I've been thinking about what your mother said-in the Argen-Tellirynd," replied the sister knight, almost as if she were musing to herself. "Doesn't it seem possible-even likely-that the same forces are at work against both of our peoples? That the dark powers commanding the scrags are the same that unleashed the Elf-Eater and closed the Synnorian Gate?"

"It does! I've wondered about that myself-but we have no proof. Can you be sure?"

"Can we be sure that isn't the case?" wondered Brigit. "And based on that premise, perhaps the only way to open the Fey-Alamtine is to defeat the forces that hold your father prisoner."

Alicia was forced to smile at the elfwoman's determination. "I wish you luck!"

"I believe that I can make the case," Brigit replied. "But I'm not sure that I'll find anyone impartial enough to listen-if we get there at all!"

"We'll get there!" declared the princess, more vehemently than she had intended. Trying to conceal her concern from Brigit, she looked aft.

She saw her mother standing as if carved from stone, with the proud sail billowing overhead. Beyond, past the transom and far down the foam-flecked line of the longship's wake, two black smudges lay against the horizon. These were the flat-ships of the sea creatures, and they remained well back.

Then her eyes were drawn back to the ship with a shock as Robyn groaned and staggered on the afterdeck. Immediately Tavish reached her side, holding Robyn's elbows and gently lowering her to the deck. Keane knelt beside the queen in another instant as Alicia raced down the center of the hull.

"I'm all right!" Robyn insisted as her daughter got there. Robyn sat up and brushed away the hands supporting her. "You'd think I was an old woman!"

"Are you really okay?" inquired Alicia, kneeling before her mother. For a moment, Robyn's eyes softened, and the younger woman saw a terrible exhaustion there.

"I… I just need to rest," the queen assured her.

For the first time since her mother's collapse, Alicia looked overhead. The once proud sail hung slack, undisturbed by any breath of wind, as if the real breeze had abandoned them at the same time as did the enchanted one.

"Swing out the oars! Clear those benches!" barked Brandon, and his crewmen scrambled to obey. He turned to Alicia, her own concern mirrored in his eyes. "We'll try to keep ahead of them until nightfall. Then we'll lose them in the dark and turn back to the west."

"Will that work?" asked Alicia, hating the sound of the question. Her faith was wavering, but she didn't want that fact to show.

"It's all we've got," replied Brandon with a shrug and a quizzical look at her.

Alicia rose from her knees and looked over the transom. Already, it seemed, the black dots had begun to grow.

In the darkest hours of the night, the longship Princess of Moonshae advanced across the black sea to the muffled strokes of oars, but no other sounds. For hours, the vessel slipped across the placid sea. The men labored at the oars. Even the Ffolk took turns wielding the heavy oaken poles, but they had no way of knowing whether or not the sea beasts on their great rafts were closing the distance.

Past midnight, the crew shuffled places once more. Those who had been resting took places on the rowing benches, while the exhausted sailors from the earlier shift tried to catch a little rest.

It was after this adjustment that the sailor, Luge, found himself at an oar, seated beside the gunwale of the longship. On each night of the voyage, he had performed his task faithfully, dropping one of the tiny bells over the side, plainly marking the longship's course for the pursuing hordes of the Underdeep.

Yet tonight he found himself with a problem. For the first time, the crew remained active through the hours of darkness, and Luge had yet to perform his duty. Not understanding why, he grew more and more agitated as time passed. Now he tried to maintain the pace of his oar while slipping a hand into his tunic, fumbling at the concealed pocket.

"Careful, by Tempus!" snarled a fellow sailor as Luge's oar collided with his neighbor's.

"Sorry," he grunted, turning to nod at the grumbling northman. At the same time, he placed his hand on the gunwale and allowed the tiny bell to drop into the water.

Immediately it began to ring.

The wind had abandoned them completely, Alicia told herself when she awakened to the pale blue light of predawn. An utterly still expanse of water surrounded them. It was too dark to see very far, but she had to wonder about the presence of the twin rafts.

Diffused light gave way to a banner of sunrise on the horizon, and details became apparent up to a mile away, and then two, except that there were no details, save for the eternal calm of the sea.

Then they could see three miles, and at the same time, they discovered the rafts. No one had to announce the observation; it was silently shared by every person on the ship. The two flat slabs came at them like huge, implacable sharks. They were close enough for the crew to hear the snapping of wide, fishlike jaws, and the slicing noise of the two massive rafts' passage over the water.

Not a breath of wind stirred the flat, seemingly endless sea. The only waves were the twin plumes cast by the Princess of Moonshae. The vessel, despite the efforts of the straining oarsmen, seemed to labor only with great reluctance through the water. In the hush, the rhythmic cadence of the sea beasts' paddling came to them, a dull pulsing that moved through the sea, sounding a beat of approaching doom.

"Stroke, you miserable lubbers!" shouted Brandon, but men could not increase their effort when it was already strained to the maximum. A martial chord suddenly rang through the air as Tavish again raised her harp, the need for stealth past. The playing of that enchanted weapon filled the weary sailors with strength, and once again the longship moved with a feeling approaching speed.

Yet it was not enough. After a few minutes of watching, it became apparent that the monsters still closed the gap between them.

"How did those devils find us?" spat the Prince of Gnarhelm, glaring to the rear as if his anger alone could incinerate the bizarre rafts.

"Through the dark of the night, no less," Alicia agreed. Subconsciously she looked for Keane. It seemed that now, with disaster so near at hand, the wizard was the only one who could offer them a chance of escape.

But he wasn't even paying attention. The princess saw him in the prow, peering before them, studying the flat water in their path. The mage's posture, his whole attitude, depicted raw tension. Abruptly he pulled a small vial of dust from a pouch of his robe and pinched a small portion of it between a finger and thumb. Then he let the dust fly, at the same time chanting the command words for a spell.

Alicia noticed that many of the crewmen were also watching the mage-as if they expect him to pull some kind of miraculous rabbit from his hat, she thought with annoyance. Then she realized with a flash of shame that she had been doing the same thing.

Abruptly all thoughts of salvation from that quarter were dashed when the mage stiffened, then whirled back to face Brandon and Knaff the Elder, who still manned the helm.

"Turn!" shrieked Keane, more agitated than Alicia had ever seen him. "That way-turn left!" He pointed, the tension in his body transferred in full to his voice. "Now, if you value your lives!"

Knaff hesitated a moment, looking to Brandon, but the captain didn't question the mage's warning. "Do it!" he bellowed, and the helmsman threw the rudder hard to port.

At her leisurely speed, the Princess of Moonshae didn't heel or rock from the force of the turn. Instead, the longship meandered through a sweeping, gradual change of direction. To Alicia, it seemed as though they were mired in mud. She stared at Keane, at the calm sea beyond him, and wondered if he had lost his mind.

A danger of the turn became apparent when she looked backward. The two broad rafts seemed much closer, and now, with the longship sailing across their path instead of away from them, they seemed to advance with shocking speed.

Then she became aware of a sound or vibration-an ominous rumble so deep that Alicia felt rather than heard it. The others, too, sensed the disturbance. All talk ceased, and even the oarsmen cocked their ears at the water as they strained with redoubled efforts toward their task. Alicia saw, with a sickening sense of shock, that the faces of many of the veteran seamen had blanched with terror.

The Princess of Moonshae began to tremble with a vibration that could no longer be doubted. It seized the vessel as if in a giant fist, and the longship quivered helplessly in its grasp. Still Alicia couldn't hear any audible noise, but the rumbling sensation reached into the pit of her stomach.

Then, finally, beginning like the roll of distant thunder, carried like an echo across a series of ridges, the sound came. Swiftly the rumbling gained force, and the hull of the ship shook so that it seemed as if the planks must soon be torn from the hull.

Tavish pounded her harp, tearing across the strings with her fingers, and the music rose up as if to challenge this unnatural disturbance. But it was no contest.

The only consolation came with a look to the rear. The two rafts of sea creatures were drifting as the monsters looked this way and that, obviously seeking the source of the same rumbling that afflicted the longship.

"At least we know they're not causing it," the princess remarked to Brigit, who once again stood beside her.

"They seem to be as worried as we are," the elfwoman agreed. "Though I'm not sure that's good news."

The momentum of the rafts had carried them well forward, into the same area where Keane had first sounded the alarm. Now they came about, veering to port so as to continue to close with the Princess of Moonshae. Like the humans, however, the aquatic monsters remained preoccupied with the mysterious vibrations that seemed to disturb this whole area of the sea.

"Look! On the surface, there!" shouted Keane, pointing toward the waters at the rear.

"Under the water!" Brand corrected. "Something's moving-fast!"

At first, they wondered if it might not be another of the flat rafts, for the appearance of bubbles and movement beneath the water was reminiscent of their arrival. In the stress of the moment, no one remembered that there had been no vibration preceding their surfacing. The current phenomenon also seemed to affect a larger area of water.

The rafts drove closer, propelled by the paddles once again, as the sahuagin and scrags who weren't rowing stood up on their platforms and brandished weapons and fists toward the humans. A trap was about to close. One raft approached the Princess from dead astern, while the other closed from the port quarter.

And then the Princess of Moonshae pitched violently forward, her stern rising into the air, lifted by a powerful force from below. The longship shot ahead, sliding down a frothing wall of white water as if the ocean had been turned on edge. Spray flew upward, propelled by some massive undersea explosion, and a shower of water spilled into the rear of the suddenly careening longship.

The sea behind them continued to rise, swirling into the air, spewing a shower of brine to all side's but continuing to spin upward in a huge, towering column of seawater. A dark shape appeared in the liquid pillar. The raft directly behind the long-ship had been seized in the whirlpool and dragged upward with the force of the rising water.

"The Cyclones of Evermeet!" shouted Alicia.

Abruptly another of the great columns spewed upward from before them, and then a third and a fourth spouted from the surface. More and more of the vast, churning pillars of seawater spumed skyward, each more than a hundred paces across and apparently cylindrical all the way up the frothing surface. Water sprayed out from each, creating a drenching shower wherever the companions turned. Obviously the water thus lost was replaced, for the columns seemed to grow still larger as the awestruck witnesses watched.

Five hundred feet above them, the column of water spewed out the great raft. The flat vessel had swirled around and around the column, carried steadily upward until this point. For a few brief moments, the huge object seemed to float in the air, but then it plummeted seaward with steadily increasing speed. Hundreds of tiny forms spilled free, writhing in the air and clutching for some kind of support.

The raft struck the water flat on its hull, shooting spray for hundreds of feet to all sides and splintering into pieces from the force of the impact. Many of the raft's passengers landed atop the suddenly immobile object, perishing instantly from the long, screaming fall.

The Princess of Moonshae careened to the side, once again driven by the wind, which had freshened dramatically at the same time as the cyclones had appeared. Now Knaff the Elder guided them away from the nearest waterspout, steering as far from it as possible while still bearing west.

Within moments, white water surrounded them. Needles of spray lashed skin and stung eyes, while the roaring of angry water rose to a thunderous crescendo. Knaff, high on the helmsman's stand, tried to see what lay in their path, but he, too, was blinded by the torrent.

They might have reached the end of the world then, for with sudden abruptness the Princess of Moonshae plunged over the lip of an unseen drop, plummeting downward at breakneck speed.

"A Manta-destroyed!" Fury drove Coss-Axell-Sinioth to new heights of violence. His squid form lashed about in the depths of the Trackless Sea, the great tentacles crushing any scrags and sahuagin unfortunate enough to be caught by the stunning blows.

"But so are the humans!" hissed Krell-Bane, trembling before the avatar's rage. "They must certainly be dead!" The giant sea troll, master of his race and ruling monarch of the Coral Kingdom, unwisely spat his own anger back at the giant squid. "They sailed full into the Cyclones of Evermeet, and it's common knowledge that no air-breather can survive that tempest!"

"Can you bring me their bodies?" demanded the giant squid.

Now the sea monarch trembled before the wrath of his master. Still, the scrag king was forced to shake his head in negative response.

"Where is the other Manta?" inquired the avatar, his tone dropping to a deep rumble of menace-like an undersea earthquake, thought Krell-Bane, distant but promising the imminent arrival of a crushing wave of pressure.

"It patrols outside the Cyclone belt, awaiting the humans," explained the scrag, hoping the news would be well received. "If the ship should somehow escape-and I assure your Excellency that that is virtually impossible-then-"

"I thought you told me that it was impossible," the great squid shape reminded the scrag.

"Yes. It is-for all practical purposes, of course. There's no way-"

"Enough!" snapped Coss-Axell-Sinioth, finally growing tired of his minion's groveling. "Send all the troops we can muster to form a line at the outer edge of the cyclone belt. If they emerge, they are to be tracked and observed-not attacked until I give the word. Is that understood?"

The sea beast bowed and nodded cravenly.

"Then begone!" commanded the great squid. "Return to me when you have news!"

The sea king darted away, quickly vanishing into the emerald depths. Coss-Axell-Sinioth watched him go, growling deep in his black heart. He itched for vengeance, but had no ready target for his hatred-nothing nearby, at any rate.

His thoughts drifted to the south, to the bright coral castles in the ocean shallows of Kyrasti and the air-filled prisons formed therein. Sinioth summoned the king of the sahuagin, who had waited safely out of the avatar's range. The fishman was considerably relieved that it was the scrag who bore the onus of the attack's failure.

"Come, my faithful one," ordered the giant squid, and the hulking sahuagin, the largest living member of his race, obeyed. "It is time for you to return to the grotto. There you must tend to the prisoner."

12

The Warder of Evermeet

White water surged across the gunwales and showered from the sky in a seemingly endless stream. The dizzying plunge proved brief, but the sleek ship still raced blindly down a crashing wave. The Princess of Moonshae sagged in the water, loaded with the increasing weight of her own liquid ballast. All around, like a forest of massive columns, the pillars of water spewed upward, throwing seawater into the air with volcanic force.

"Bail! Bail for your lives!" cried Brandon, though nearly everyone aboard the ship was already doing just that.

The only exceptions were the Prince of Gnarhelm himself, who scanned the heaving water between the cyclones, looking for the safest passage, and Knaff the Elder, who clung to the rudder with a strength that belied his age. He may as well have been a part of the longship, feet nailed in place and wooden arms locked around the shaft with bands of steel sinew.

The High Queen lay still on a makeshift litter near the transom, her arms calmly crossed on her chest, as if she took no notice of the maelstrom around them. Her cheeks were pale and hollow, her breathing slow and deep.

"Starboard!" snarled the captain, and Knaff leaned on the rudder. The Princess of Moonshae scored a clean arc around the base of one of the monstrous spouts, racing like a diving bird, the force of the turn rocking the vessel far to the side.

"Now port-hard, man!" Brandon leaned to the left, as if his own weight would help the longship obey his command. Again Knaff anticipated the order, pressing hard in the opposite direction and hauling the vessel through the reverse of her previous turn.

They advanced with reckless speed, surrounded by vast whirlpools, water that spumed and swirled with the unleashed energy of the mighty sea. The waterspouts in the distance seemed as inanimate as stone-faced mountains or landscapes. Nearby, however, the cyclones seethed and sprayed like living, flowing things.

Frantic sailors seized every bucket and cup, everything that could conceivably be used to scoop water. Arms churning, the crew bailed like madmen and madwomen. The water level in the ship remained just barely constant, as the Princess of Moonshae glided around the cyclones with lumbering grace.

Abruptly the longship hit a great wave, a swell that rose as a. monstrous barrier in their path. Wind filled the sail, pressing forward and up, but the sleek vessel's momentum inevitably slowed. Brand clenched his teeth, looking at the crest that foamed and frothed above the figurehead. Then the Princess of Moonshae heeled away from the height, and for a sickening, drawn-out moment, the ship slid sideways on her keel, slipping down the wave and teetering, on the verge of capsizing. Only Knaff's skilled use of the rudder-Brandon didn't even try to command him at this perilous juncture-and the longship's superb construction and wide beam saved them from total disaster.

The helmsman guided the ship through a mad plunge down the flowing slope, through a dip between four pillars, and up a lower slope that blocked their path to the north. The vessel's speed carried them over this ridge, and for a moment, she perched on the brink of two swells.

Gasping from the strain of bailing, Alicia paused for a moment and looked ahead, awestruck.

The foaming pillars extended as far as she could see in all directions, intermixed by perilous whirlpools, all of it angry seawater, eager to chew up the longship and spit forth pieces of driftwood.

The only benefit-and it could not be overlooked-was that all sign of the pursuing rafts had been lost. Indeed, the crew took some heart from the fact that they had witnessed one of them destroyed. But now rows of pillars extended to the north and south for a dozen miles. The view to east and west was more restricted-columns of water stood directly before them in many places, and a second row of pillars blocked the view through the gaps.

Still, there seemed to be a rhythm to the churning mess between the spouts. The water rose into a whitewater crest, almost like a ridge of land, where each pair of pillars came relatively close together-as a rule, the narrower the gap, the higher the swell.

Conversely, the areas centered between three or four pillars tended to dip, with water flowing down into these shallow bowls from all sides. Knaff displayed breathtaking skill in guiding the Princess of Moonshae down these slopes, while Brandon studied the two or three gaps leading out of the bowl. Selecting the one offering the easiest passage, he commanded the steersman to turn, and the sleek longship shot upward like an arrow, propelled by the momentum of her downward run.

Spray filled the air, and often they sailed through blinding mist, but the two northmen looked upward, locating the columns that reached to the sky. Somehow, even with such scant navigational aid, Brandon and Knaff kept the longship afloat. A dozen times, a hundred times they avoided disaster only by the instantaneous press of Knaff's steady hand on the tiller, or by Brandon's keen eye spotting the one course allowing them a minimal chance of survival.

"Look!" cried Brigit from the bow, her voice thrilling with hope.

Alicia scrambled to her side, moving unsteadily from handhold to handhold through the lurching hull. "What?" she gasped, wiping the spray from her eyes.

"There! I see blue sky!"

"Yes!" It was true! A pair of wide, trunklike waterspouts stood before them, and beyond yawned an expanse of azure. They couldn't see the water below the pillars, for between the waterspouts loomed the largest ridge of heaving sea they had yet encountered. It looked like a precipitous mountain pass perched between two lofty, unassailable summits. Yet there was no choice-to the right and left, virtually converging columns of water formed sheer waterfalls, impossible to traverse.

"Dead ahead!" shouted Brandon as the Princess raced down the chute leading to the rise. Bobbing and twisting like a canoe in a torrential rapids, the craft plunged dizzily, seemingly out of control. Careening wildly, the longship keeled over, burying the port gunwale in spray. A tiny adjustment by Knaff and she heeled back, dipping the starboard rail toward the surface before bobbing upright.

Then the heaving slope lay before them, and the Princess of Moonshae raced into the water, climbing steadily but quickly losing the speed she had picked up on the descent. The sail spread wide, bulging with a following wind, but it wouldn't be enough.

For a sickening, paralyzing moment, the ship teetered on the brink of disaster, a downward slip that would inevitably turn her beam to the slope and capsize the sturdy craft. Alicia's heart pounded. Oddly, she felt fear only that they would end the mission before it had had a chance to begin.

"Father…" she whispered, staring into the churning froth, terrified it would be the last thing she said to him.

"By the goddess, give me breath!" shouted Robyn. Unnoticed, the queen had pushed herself up from her litter until she stood at the stern, leaning weakly against the transom. The Princess of Moonshae sank backward, and water surged into the hull, nearly sweeping Robyn off her feet. "Blow, wind!" she cried, raising both her hands.

The longship tipped sickeningly, and then a surge of wind exploded, billowing out the sail, creaking the mast as if it would tear the proud pole from the keel. Groaning from the strain, the vessel reeled at the edge of doom, the weight of the ship and all the water in her hull dragging her downward, but the miraculous wind, the power of the goddess herself, filling the sail steadily.

Slowly the longship broke from equilibrium, inching through the spray, plowing ever so slowly to the crest of the watery ridge. Then the bow passed the summit, plowing upward into open air. The Princess of Moonshae stood poised, bow pointed toward the sky, stern buried in white water. The Great Druid of the isles stood by the sheer force of will, commanding the power of nature to push the vessel the last few inches to safety. But still the longship teetered. .

And then Robyn groaned. Her face drained of blood and she dropped like a felled tree, slamming roughly into the deck. Disaster loomed as the ship slipped back toward the slope, but one more gust of wind kicked up, whether from nature or goddess did not matter. It filled the sail and pushed, and the sleek vessel at long last tipped forward, bow dropping and stern climbing.

They started down the slope, and Alicia's eyes were filled with dizzying impressions, all of them fantastic. She saw blue water stretched placidly before them, after this one final slope of spilling spray. They had passed the barrier to Evermeet! And then even more glad tidings, at the limit of the horizon-a long strip of solidity: land! It beckoned them with verdant and pastoral beauty, promising a safe harbor after the nightmare passage of the last day.

"Evermeet!" cried Brigit, spotting the land at the horizon. "We've made it!"

Cheers broke from everyone-northman, Ffolk, and elf-aboard the Princess of Moonshae. The proud vessel slid with dizzying speed down the last sloping wave, and this time the ride was exhilarating. Gracefully gliding away from the torrent of the waterspouts onto a surface of gently rolling swells, the longship leaned jauntily, once again heeling to the soft press of the wind in her sail.

As the companions watched, the seething barrier of the cyclones slowly settled as one by one the columns collapsed back to the sea. A swell of water rolled outward from the fading torrent, but the Princess of Moonshae easily cut through that minor disturbance. Finally she slid across a smooth and unmarked sea, with the growing line of the horizon beckoning them forward.

"They stopped after we passed," Brandon observed in quiet awe. "As if our presence triggered their appearance, and they lasted as long as we stayed within their domain."

Alicia patted the gunwale beneath her hands and smiled softly. "You said you'd sail her to the ends of the earth if you could. Was that close enough?"

"As close as I'd care to come," allowed the prince. "I would dare say that no other ship on the Trackless Sea could have made it."

"Nor any other captain," Alicia added, taking the northman's arm and kissing him quickly.

Then Alicia made her way back to her mother. Robyn lay senseless, her face as white as a corpse while Tavish cradled the queen's head in her lap. "She lives," said the bard softly, "but she's terribly weak. We must make landfall quickly. She needs a warm bed!"

"Evermeet!" said the princess softly. "We see it at the horizon. We'll make landfall before dark!"

Then something pounded into the Princess of Moonshae from below, crunching the heavy keel and lifting the ship dozens of feet into the air. Men fell to the deck, cursing or stunned, and the sleek vessel tumbled precariously to the side, nearly capsizing.

But this was no force of water or cyclone. The thing that had struck the ship was solid and powerful, moving very quickly. Alicia rolled across the deck at the stern, trying to draw her sword and get to her feet at the same moment. Even as she did so, her blood chilled to the announcement of Wultha, who stood at the rail and raised his huge battle-axe.

"Dragon turtle!" he bellowed, driving the blade forward with all the strength in his broad shoulders.

Alicia twisted to look, gasping in horror as a huge head, blunt-snouted and leathery-skinned, reared into view. Wultha's axe crunched into the broad nose, but then the creature's monstrous jaws spread wide. They closed about the bellowing northman, abruptly silencing his cries. When the dragon turtle's head vanished over the side, only the stumps of the huge warrior's legs remained standing grotesquely in place, bitten off cleanly at the knees.

The longship reeled to another crushing attack, and this time timbers splintered and cracked, and water burst through the hull.

The man sat in his emerald prison and wondered about the passage of time. He knew-or sensed, in any event-that he hadn't been here all his life. He remembered things of the outside-a sun, trees, highlands looming overhead, the feel of wind on his face.

Where were those things now? That was a question he couldn't answer. There were so many important questions-fundamental mysteries of his own life, his own past-and yet the answers to all of them seemed impossibly distant and unattainable.

Another important thought came to him then-not so much a piece of knowledge as a bit of a feeling. With a shiver, he looked over his shoulder, recognizing the feeling.

Menace. There was danger here.

"But where?" he groaned out loud. "Where am I?"

Food and water had come, he saw without surprise-the usual tortoiseshell bowls of clear water and raw fish. That had been his sustenance for a long time, he remembered, but not forever.

Menace. He reminded himself of the danger. But who was his enemy? How was he threatened?

Suddenly he remembered a huge shape, dark and indistinct of feature, wielding a horrible knife. By the gods, that knife! With a scream, the man seized the stump of his wrist with his other hand, staggering backward and slumping to his stone bed as the memories flooded back. …

He was screaming in those memories, and his arms and legs were restrained by terrible creatures with brutal claws. The man's face was bleeding and bruised, but more than one of the monsters had retreated, nursing a broken limb, before he had been fully subdued.

But then had come that knife!

And afterward, a drink. Now he was beginning to remember-a steaming goblet of sweet juice, delightful in taste and invigorating in sensation. He had drunk it greedily, and it had brought him some measure of relief.

But after he drank it, he had begun to forget. Now it had taken him great mental effort exerted over many hours just to remember that much. It was the drink that had made him forget!

Other memories trickled back, each slowly and reluctantly, like a timid hare lured from its burrow by a patient snaresman. He had been given the drink several times, he remembered vaguely, though only that first time did he recall with clarity.

Now he resolved, deep within a heart that had known long years of firm resolution, that he would not take the drink again. He didn't know how he had risen above its stuporific effects, but he knew that he would not willingly suffer those effects again.

He vowed to himself in the name of… he couldn't remember. Suddenly movement in the pool of water disturbed his meditations. He barely had time to throw himself backward upon the bed, feigning comatose slumber, before a large creature splashed to the surface and climbed from the pool.

He looked through narrowed lids and saw a huge sahuagin, the leering face a cross between a lizard and a fish. Bands of gold chain wrapped the creature's chest and loins. Webbed feet, studded with curving claws, flapped across the smooth floor as the creature advanced.

The sahuagin's back, he saw, bristled with long spines connected by thin webbing. The spines stood erect and alert now, and a pointed tongue slipped in and out of the distended, tooth-studded jaws. The man looked lower, to the monster's hands, which were webbed and clawed like its feet. One of these cautiously clasped the jeweled hilt of a scimitar borne at his waist, and the other held a tall bottle. The creature removed a cork stopper with its teeth.

From the top of the drinking vessel trailed a thin column of steam.

The dragon turtle came at the Princess of Moonshae from below, smashing the bony shell of its back into the hull with another timber-crushing blow, heaving the vessel far out of the water and sending her crashing to the side. Again the tumble very nearly capsized the battered longship.

Alicia caught a momentary glimpse of a monstrous snout thrashing in the water. A cavernous mouth gaped, and she saw bony ridges instead of teeth. With one bite, those ridges clamped onto the longship's starboard rail, ripping pieces from several stout planks. Blunt claws, each as big as a tall man's leg, appeared at the gunwale on either side of the snout, and the Princess of Moonshae rocked violently as the monster pushed against the hull.

The bowmen fired volleys of arrows at the beast when it showed itself above the gunwale. Most of the missiles bounced harmlessly from the heavy shell, but a few shafts punctured one of the monster's staring eyes. The turtle closed a leathery lid over the injured organ, effectively blinded on one side, though that did nothing to deter its aggressive attacks.

Next the raging beast ducked under the water to come up against the port side of the longship. Keane dove out of the way in apparent fright as the blunt head reared into the air, but then he spun and pointed. From his finger burst a lightning bolt that scored a gory wound in the dragon turtle's good eye.

The monster bellowed in rage, opening its jaw and belching forth a great cloud of steam. The blast struck the ship with explosive force, hissing through the air, searing flesh in a white fog. Several crewmen, caught in the killing heat, collapsed to the deck, writhing in agony.

Keane dodged beneath the killing cloud and then quickly scrambled to his feet. Next he cast a blast of cold that ricocheted harmlessly from the monster's great shell after freezing the water there to a gleaming coat of ice. Again he chanted the words of magic, and a fireball drifted outward, exploding in a hellish blossom of flame. The blistering inferno sizzled the surface of the sea but didn't affect the monster. The dragon turtle simply dove to avoid the blast.

For a time, then, nothing disturbed the surface of the gently rolling sea. Endless seconds passed into an eternal minute, then another. . and still there was no sign of the turtle's presence.

"Is it gone?" asked Alicia.

"Not likely," replied the Prince of Gnarhelm tersely. His intense manner prevented the woman from asking any further questions.

Abruptly the captain stiffened. "To the oars!" he bellowed, his voice booming through the boat and out across the sea. "Stop her in the water! Backward, men-hard!"

With his first word, the men of his crew sprang into action, seizing the long oars that were drawn into the vessel. The blades struck the water and churned backward with enough force to send Alicia stumbling forward from the sudden shift in the ship's momentum.

"Stroke, you weaklings! Full astern!" shouted Brandon, stalking down the center of the hull.

A great crack sounded at the same time as the longship's bow flew upward into the air. The blinded turtle hadn't struck the ship squarely, but several more planks splintered, and the craft rocked dangerously as it slid backward off the dragon's rising shell. Water spilled into the hull through several narrow, long gaps.

"By the Abyss, still it finds us!" hissed Brigit, her hand tightening around her sword.

"By sound!" Keane's eyes suddenly flashed, and he looked for Brandon. The turtle, meanwhile, vanished into the depths. In a few seconds, the magic-user explained his plan-and Brandon nodded grimly.

"Be silent!" ordered the Prince of Gnarhelm in a low voice that nevertheless carried throughout the hull. "Everyone remain perfectly quiet!"

As always, the crew obeyed even as the order was issued. Quickly the Princess of Moonshae grew still, drifting like a ghost ship with upraised oars and silent, staring crewmen.

Keane stalked to the starboard rail and murmured the words to a spell. Something splashed beside the longship and Alicia flinched unconsciously, expecting the return of the dragon turtle. Instead, she saw the effect of Keane's spell.

The mage had created an invisible wall of force, shaped like a square about twelve feet on a side and pressed flat against the surface of the water. Concentrating diligently, Keane shifted it first to the left and then to the right, so that water splashed around and over it. Then, still staring intently at the evidence of magic, the mage directed the force away from the Princess of Moonshae.

Splashing and swirling steadily, the effect of the spell moved farther from the longship, at right angles to her gentle course. After a few moments, they saw it: The water heaved beneath the wall of force, rising to reveal the great dome of the dragon turtle's shell. The blind creature thrashed about, seeking the thing it had heard, but Keane had already slid the invisible craft off to the side. It continued to churn its way through the water, and once again the monster heard it. The dragon turtle dove again, and they could imagine it following the noisy effect of the spell.

"Look!" Brigit's voice, a taut whisper, came to Alicia's ears alone. She turned and gasped silently. The shore of Evermeet loomed so close now that they could see individual trees and the gracefully sculpted outlines of tall, brightly painted buildings. Hues of blue, green, and amber mingled together on the small structures, creating a village that looked rather like a giant flower blossom.

Once more the dragon turtle broke the surface, more than two miles distant now and moving away fast. Safe from that threat, at least for the time being, Brandon directed their attention to a safe approach to shore.

"Soundings-constant," he ordered several crewmen, who took a weighted line to the bow and began to measure the depth of the water.

"Plenty deep!" came the reassuring reply.

"Lookouts-all along the hull," cried the captain next. "Be alert for anything! Sounding?"

"Still deep!"

Leaking from a dozen holes, listing to her battered starboard side, sail puffing from a few listless gusts of wind, the Princess of Moonshae crept toward Evermeet. Alicia stood beside the elven woman and shared her sense of awe. It seemed impossible that they were here, barely a mile away from the verdant shore.

"Still deep," came the announcement from the bow, followed by a strangled gasp. "Wait… I see something. What the-stop! Shallows-coral!"

Brandon whirled, ready to order his men to the oars. Before he could open his mouth, they all felt a wood-splintering crunch. At the same time, the longship stopped moving completely.

"Coral reef came from nowhere, Captain!" stammered the shocked sailor who had been performing the soundings. "The water was hundreds of feet deep, and then there it was, like a giant spike stuck as a barrier!"

"It may very well be just that," Brigit noted grimly. "How badly are we stuck?"

"With luck, the tide'll float us off," replied Brandon, with a worried look at the water that had started to trickle in through several new cracks.

"That's the least of our problems," announced Keane, with a meaningful gesture over the side. A quick look showed Alicia what he meant.

The water around the longship teemed with swimming figures-greenish and mottled blue creatures with elven features but webbed hands and feet. Each of the figures held a bow, with an arrow nocked and pointed at the longship.

With a sinking sensation in her heart, the princess looked around. The coastal guards had them completely surrounded. A quick count showed her there were many hundreds of them.

Deirdre returned to the mirror but again met with frustration. When she sought her sister or mother, she saw instead only a gray fog. It had been this way since they had passed the Cyclones of Evermeet. Whatever the nature of the arcane barriers protecting the island, Deirdre deduced that they extended into the realm of the arcane.

Nor did her continuing efforts to discover the location of her father yield any results other than a fruitless search of the limitless depths of the Trackless Sea.

More and more she had found her thoughts moving away from her family, away from any and all the people of her realm. Instead, her mind chased relentlessly after the one she could not find, the one she knew again walked the surface of the Realms.

Sooner or later, she vowed, her mirror would again locate the being she had known as Malawar, and when it did, her vengeance against him would be complete.

For a long, pregnant moment, the creatures in the water made no sound. Sunlight glinted from hundreds of arrowheads, a warlike and ironic contrast to the beautiful coral shallows, the mottled blue and green water reflecting the sunlight in dazzling hues.

The aquatic archers held their weapons horizontally so that both ends of their bows remained out of the water. The archers could shower the longship's hull with their lethal rain at a moment's notice.

"Be careful!" Brigit hissed. "They've been taught all their lives that humans are their mortal enemies. Don't let anyone do anything to give them cause to shoot!"

The princess studied the creatures in the water, realizing that they tended to be very fair-looking beings, with the pointed ears and narrow, shapely skulls of elves. The skin on their faces and arms, the only parts she could see above the water, varied in color from soft green to deep blue, even shifting through many hues on a single individual. The webbed hands and feet, however, couldn't help reminding the princess of a sahuagin.

"What are they?" she asked softly, realizing that Brigit stood beside her.

"The Aquis-Dulcio. . sea elves," said the sister knight, her voice heavy with awe. "I've heard about them. All of us know of our cousins of the deep, but never have I seen one!"

Just then one of the sea elves rose, treading water with his feet. He opened his mouth, and a series of lyrical sounds came forth. To Alicia, it sounded like a pleasant song in which the singer made up nonsense sounds instead of words.

Brigit, however, stiffened and then listened with rapt attention. She responded once in the same language, and then the aquatic elf continued speaking. Despite the musical nature of the speech, the speaker's gestures and expressions convinced the princess he was delivering a harangue. His webbed hands clenched into fists, and he planted them firmly on his hips. Brandon, Robyn, and Keane observed the communication, gathering around the sister knight by the time the sea elf ceased speaking.

"What does he say?" asked the captain impatiently.

"They demand that we leave. They promise to kill us if we don't depart immediately."

Alicia's heart sank. "But don't they understand?" she objected.

"They understand that this is a human ship, and they insist that humans are not allowed here."

"Did you tell them why we're here?" asked Robyn.

"I told them who I am. The Sisters of Synnoria are known throughout elvendom, and being their captain gives me some status. I started to explain about the Synnorian Gate, but he cut me off and told me that it didn't matter-we had to leave." She didn't repeat the names he had called her, the filthy epithets-traitor and worse-for bringing the eternal enemies of elvendom to this sacred place.

"Does he see that we're stuck on an Abyss-cursed lump of coral?" snarled Brandon, stepping to the rail to glower at the male, who still held himself half out of the water. The northman started to raise his fist, but then apparently thought better of the gesture. With an inarticulate mutter, he turned back to the discussion.

Brigit leaned over the rail again and sang something back to the elf in the water. The sea elf scowled and came back in a minor, threatening key. The sister knight shrugged and turned back to the humans.

"I told him that we're stranded, that we can't get off of here. He … was insulting, but at least he didn't insist that we leave."

Hanrald listened intently, standing at the gunwale and flushing as he stared at the elf. He sensed that Brigit had been treated very rudely. "He's a pompous little wart, that one. I'd like to have the chance to teach him a few manners!"

Abruptly Alicia grew impatient and stepped to the gunwale. "We come in peace, and we seek an audience with your queen and her council of sages." She spoke in Common, trying to keep her voice light, her face friendly. "We offer no threat!"

She found herself the target of more arrows than she could count, all poised on the brink of launching. If any one of them slips, she thought, I'm dead.

Then Brigit stepped to her side. Again she spoke in that lyrical tongue, and the male replied. Now, however, several other males and a female joined him. All of them were covered by multicolored skin, fading through every shade of blue, green, and aqua in an effect that was really quite beautiful.

The female sea elf, who also rose from the water to sing, addressed Brigit and then the male. She was marvellously beautiful, with silvery hair that hung to the waterline in tight curls, concealing her breasts-but not the fact that she, like the male, seemed to be naked. Then she dove, her webbed feet popping out of the water just briefly. Alicia quickly lost sight of the perfectly camouflaged form as the sea elf disappeared into the dappled waters of the coral shallows.

"That's a little better," Brigit told them, still wary. "This one gave me her name-Trillhalla. She called the other one Palentor. She says that we're fortunate in where we've made landfall. The queen is in the Summer Palace, and that's not far from here. Also the names of Tristan and Robyn Kendrick are not unknown to her. Nor," she added quietly, "is Brigit Cu'Lyrran. Anyway, she'll send word of our arrival. She warns that we have to stay here until she returns."

"That'll be easy enough," Brandon growled, with a belligerent look at the male who had been the first to speak.

Alicia, meanwhile, looked at the sky. The sun had passed into the region of late afternoon, and the magnificent forests of Evermeet, gleaming in a rainbow of colors, glowed beneath it. The water was placid, except for the graceful disturbance caused by the array of elven archers. As she looked, it seemed to her that their numbers continued to swell.

Natural enough, she thought, if humans are unknown here. They've probably never seen a longship before either.

With that not exactly comforting thought, she settled down on the deck with the rest of the crew to await the return of Trillhalla.

"Have you failed me, worm?"

The question posed by Talos was an awkward one for the avatar Sinioth. He answered as deftly as he could.

"We have trailed the humans to their destination. They are far removed from the prisoner, and we have two thousand warriors screening the seas against their escape. Should they try to sail, we shall annihilate them!"

"Very well," rumbled the Destructor. "Even the mirror brings no image of them. I shall be patient-for now."

"Thank you, most merciful master!" pledged the avatar, thrashing his squid body through the depths in an ecstasy of groveling.

"But should you fail me in the end," continued Talos, "it will be more than the pathetic humans who face annihilation!"