The Coral Kingdom

5

Keane was the first to attack, spurring his horse into a charge across the meadow with reckless abandon. The others raced behind him as the magic-user raised his hand and started barking the commands to a spell.

The awful appearance of the monster before them belied any kind of rational explanation-from its three legs, to its monstrous size, to the lack of any apparent face, except for the fluid opening and closing of its grotesque mouth. Two humanlike figures, barely visible below the banks of a nearby stream, took advantage of the momentary distraction to scramble away from the horror.

The beast turned slowly through a full circle, waving long, whiplike tentacles in the air, as if seeking some clue to the approaching party.

Alicia's first thoughts about the monster told her that the thing was impossibly huge-too big to fight, much less hope to kill. Her second thoughts followed closely as she understood that this was not a beast of this world. But even as these apprehensions whirled through her brain, she spurred her horse to join the thundering charge of her companions trailing after Keane.

The lanky wizard, his robes flapping from the speed of his horse's gait, extended his right hand, pointing a finger toward the monstrosity looming over the riverbank. He shouted hoarsely, his words blurring with the pounding thunder of his suddenly animated steed. In fact, the gelding seemed to have abruptly come to life, throwing every ounce of its strength into a desperate and surprisingly fast gallop.

A crackling bolt of energy exploded from Keane's hand, slashing through the air like a flaming spear to impact against the monster's bony carapace, hissing for a split second as sparks flew from the wound. The domed monster bellowed in a droning, almost metallic sound and reared backward. Tentacles lashed the air before it as it sought the source of the painful attack.

But Keane reined in, well back from the monster's clutching tendrils. The muddy figures in the streambed dropped out of sight, but Alicia caught a glimpse of their wide eyes staring at the fight in the field. One of them wore a steel helmet, its silvery sheen streaked brown with mud.

Robyn joined Keane, leaping down from her saddle to stamp the end of her staff on the ground before her.

" Caorralis-Etrai!" she shouted, summoning the power of the goddess from the earth itself.

Immediately a mound of dirt began to rise from the ground, ripping itself free from the surrounding soil, tearing away a great patch of sod and rising into a giant, vaguely human form. Clumps of grass clung to its back and shoulders, for the creature had been formed from the earth itself. Growing steadily, it soon towered like a giant over the heads of the mounted Ffolk. It was an earth elemental, a creature summoned by the power of a druid and sent by the goddess to aid a cause in the world of men.

The elemental tore its great feet free from the ground and clumped toward the monster. A tentacle lashed across the elemental's face, and the creature of earth seized the tendril in hands the size of boulders, planting its feet and tugging. The strand grew taut, and for a moment, the two creatures held in equilibrium, each struggling to dislodge the other.

Warlike chords of music rang through the air as Tavish took up her harp. The music infused the humans with courage. Suddenly Alicia found her fears vanquished, replaced by a grim determination to smite this horrific creature. Hanrald and Brandon urged their horses toward the monster, shouting challenges and raising their weapons-Brandon, his great, double-bladed axe and Hanrald his immensely long sword wielded in both his metal-gauntleted hands.

Even Pawldo darted forward, spurring his pony into a gallop while he drew a shortsword from a sheath on his saddle. Whooping savagely, he dashed up to one of the monster's legs and chopped with all the strength in his small, tough body. The pony skipped nimbly away as the beast swiveled toward the annoying attack.

The earth elemental, its feet still firmly planted, pulled on the monster's tentacle, and the force of the creature was enough to jerk the monster around, allowing Pawldo and his pony to barely escape the beast's clutching grasp.

Alicia spurred her horse and drew her longsword. Her instincts as a warrior ran deep, and loyalty to her companions told her that she belonged beside them. Thus she reacted with outrage when her mother seized the mare's bridle and hauled back as the princess rode past.

"Let go!" demanded Alicia.

"Use the staff!" Robyn cried, ignoring her daughter's command.

For a moment, the princess simply stared at her mother as if the queen had lost her mind. Alicia held a perfectly good-indeed, an exceptionally good-sword in her hand, and she had trained for much of her life in that weapon's use.

Yet now her mother urged her to set that aside in favor of a shaft made from a piece of wood.

But then Alicia remembered the reborn power of the goddess, and she wasn't so sure. "How?" Alicia asked, one eye on the heroic charge of the fighters. Brandon's axe bounced off the monster's shell, while a tremendous blow from Hanrald's sword inflicted a tiny nick in its bony plate.

Pawldo circled back, darting in with his shortsword raised when he saw an opening. The beast seemed to sense his approach, however, turning back toward the halfling and ignoring the two human warriors. The pony squealed as a tendril seized its foreleg. Another limb with sharp, bony edges slashed at the small horse, ripping a great wound in its flank as Pawldo flew from the saddle.

The halfling bounded to his feet, his face twisted in fury, and was about to charge with his shortsword when Hanrald rode up behind him. Seizing Pawldo by the collar, the earl yanked the little fellow off the ground and carried him, screaming and cursing, away from immediate danger.

"Plant the staff in the ground, then use the word!" Alicia's mother said urgently.

In a flash, Alicia remembered Robyn's instructions at the Moonwell. Her mother had been mysterious about the shaft's use, yet there was no time for questions. She pulled the staff from her saddlebags and leaned over to plant its base on the ground.

"Phyrosyne!" she shouted, mimicking the word her mother had given her with the staff.

Immediately the wood expanded upward and grew thicker-like a tree undergoing thirty years' growth in mere seconds, the princess thought in amazement. Branches shot out to the sides, armlike appendages with stout, grasping twigs as fingers. The trunk split into two, forming a pair of solid pillars that held the creature upright. Then the mighty legs flexed, to carry the tree thing forward in steady, ponderous strides. It marched as rigidly as a soldier trying to impress a strict sergeant-major. Higher it grew, reaching twice the height of the earth elemental. Alicia gaped at the tree creature in awe.

"Now-command it!" her mother urged.

The princess blinked. "Attack!" she shouted, willing the thing to stride forward and strike at the monster. The tree lurched forward, its gait stiff, the two trunklike legs plodding steadily.

The arm limbs came up as tentacles from the monster lashed toward this new combatant. Like the elemental, the walking tree anchored its feet and seized the tendrils and pulled. Indeed it seemed to Alicia that the tree's base sank into the ground like roots, until the thing was as firmly planted as any stately oak. Now the earth elemental held two of the tentacles and pulled one way, while the tree creature entangled more of the monster's tendrils and anchored it on the opposite side.

Keane unleashed a barrage of spells against the beast. Meteors thundered down from the sky, shuddering the ground with the force of their impact; a great fireball blossomed around the monster, searing the faces of the watching humans with the force of its fiery blast. No sooner had the flames died than Keane unleashed a blast of killing frost, a chilling wash of pale light that coated the monster with ice and even froze several of the exposed tentacles so that the brittle limbs broke into pieces when the rampaging creature moved.

The elemental and the tree thing continued to tug in opposite directions, holding the monster immobile against the onslaught of magic.

Two silver-plated fighters scrambled from the stream to join them, and Alicia wasn't surprised to see that they were female. More stunning, to her, was the reality of their blond hair and their small, pointed ears that peeked through their light tresses. These were elves!

Any delight at the sight of them was quashed thoroughly by the menace that had brought them together. The two sister knights charged bravely on foot, trying to strike at the soft, vulnerable-looking mouth. Alicia found that her staff continued its assault without her concentration, so she drew her sword and rode forward, joining the others who battled against the lashing tentacles and probing, sucking aperture.

Despite the damage caused by Keane's spells, the monster met them with a tangled mass of tentacles, reaching forward with whiplike strikes at first one, then another of the attackers. Alicia's horse skipped back from one such thrust, but then she saw the ropelike limb snare one of the elven women around the waist. The Llewyrr warrior screamed in stark panic as her companion, the one who wore the steel helm, darted in to help, only to be knocked aside by another blow.

The Lord of Lowhill tucked his short body into a roll and tumbled forward, springing to his feet directly in front of the monster's maw.

"Pawldo!" Robyn screamed, terrified for her friend.

Before the druid could react, the halfling whirled and chopped his shortsword into the tentacle that imprisoned the knight. His small body concealed a surprising strength of sinew, and the keen edge bit deep. With a palpable grunt, the monster relaxed its hold, and the elfwoman and halfling tumbled away together.

The fighters rode in again, Hanrald and Brandon close enough to chop at the thing's trunklike legs while Alicia and the helmeted elfwoman chopped at the strands of the monster's limbs that still lashed through the air. The sister knight darted backward, tripping and sprawling to the ground from the intensity of the beast's attack. The monster seemed to seek her over all the rest of the combatants.

Alicia dashed toward the elf, hacking with her sword against the seething nest of tendrils that reached toward the prostrate knight. Hanrald, too, leaped forward to strike. The force of his two-handed blow severed the tentacle closest to the trapped Llewyrr. Then, before the princess could spring away, she felt a cold grasp around her ankle. She tried to jump, but the powerful grip of a tentacle tugged hard, and she sprawled headlong to the ground.

The force of the fall knocked the breath from her lungs, and as Alicia gasped for air, the tendril tightened around her ankle, pulling her toward the monster with shockingly brutal force. She twisted and kicked in desperation, but still she slid along the ground, scrambling for some hold. There was nothing to grab, nothing that could stop her slide!

The Earl of Fairheight leaped from his saddle and landed at her side, bringing his two-handed sword down in a savage chop that completely severed the ropelike tendril. Pawldo grabbed Alicia's hand and pulled her from the lashing limbs. Quickly the princess scrambled away as the unarmored halfling lunged between her and the horrible, devouring monster. Pawldo raised his blade and swung again at the lashing tentacles that reached out in an attempt to encircle the knight.

"Get back!" shouted Alicia, watching in horror as two of the clutching limbs wrapped around the courageous halfling's shoulders. Pawldo stumbled backward, but the grip that held him was too firm.

"Help!" shouted the stocky halfling, desperately struggling against the grasping tentacles.

A fresh surge of explosions rocked the beast backward as Keane saw the danger and blasted every spell that he knew into the looming horror. Brandon raged forward in a berserker frenzy, hacking at the tentacles with his axe, then stumbling away before they could enwrap him. Hanrald, too, attacked without regard for his own safety. The monster kicked brutally, pounding both of the brave warriors back before they could break the grip that imprisoned their comrade.

"Pull!" screamed Alicia, calling to her tree staff, desperate for any hope that could break Pawldo free. The halfling squirmed in grim silence now, dragged closer and closer to doom.

A wall of fire burst from the ground beneath the beast, smoldering into a column of oily black smoke around it. The monster shifted uncomfortably but continued to drag the halfling closer to the mouth that now gaped wetly a few feet from Pawldo's boots.

With a lurching spin, the huge beast shifted its position, exerting enough force to pull the earth elemental and the tree creature loose from their once-firm positions. The two enchanted servants stumbled, and then the monster pulled its tentacles free from their grasps. The earth elemental tumbled to the ground, while the tall tree stood, flailing about with its branchlike limbs.

The two elves dashed forward, chopping with their silver swords, and Alicia, Brandon, and Hanrald joined in the onslaught. The princess reached out desperately, grasping one of Pawldo's small hands just as the extended muzzle of the monster reached the halfling's foot.

Then, with one great gulping sound of air, the Lord of Lowhill was gone.

"No!" shrieked Alicia, disbelieving, appalled. She lunged toward the mouth as if she would drag him out again, and only the strong hands of the two elves and Brandon pulled her back from the same fate that had met the courageous halfling.

"Get back!" Robyn commanded her, and, sobbing, the princess stumbled away from the beast.

"Stop it!" Alicia cried, reeling with shock and horror. She would not accept the brave halfling's demise. "We can't let Pawldo go!" She surged forward once more, ready to attack the monster alone, but Keane's surprisingly strong grip held her back.

"Don't!" he barked, his voice a hiss. The princess whirled, ready to take out her horror and frustration on the loyal tutor, but she could not. Instead, she collapsed against her mother while the others kept a wary eye upon the looming, three-legged beast.

For a moment, they wondered if it would attack them again. The wall of fire still crackled beneath it, and the elemental and the tree creature clung to several tentacles. The monster loomed closer, and the companions raised their weapons as a group, too tired-and too dispirited-to flee. But then the great beast settled back. Somehow it seemed to regard them, though it had no eyes nor any other sensing organs that any of them could see.

And then, as if disparaging them as foes worthy of battle, the monster spun about on its three legs. With a great, earth-shaking leap, it bounded away, and in another moment, it raced into the distance, thundering down the valley like a gigantic, maddened elephant. As it fled away from the companions and their horses, their despair precluded even a momentary relief. Numbly they watched it go, each of them remembering the cheerful and courageous halfling.

Robyn stood stiff, her face a cold mask that belied the torment seething inside of her. Brandon, Keane, and Hanrald exchanged grim glances, and Alicia shook her head, determined to hold back the tears that surged against her will. Later! she vowed. Later they would grieve for Pawldo, but first they would have to avenge him.

Deirdre had watched the progress of her sister's party for several hours, using the mirror of scrying she had brought from the library of Caer Callidyrr. She had found, much to her delight, that the images in the mirror seemed almost more real than life itself. She found herself constantly drawn to the picture there, always fascinated by what she saw.

Eventually the game had grown tiring-not boring, but draining in a way that Deirdre could not ignore. Her neck was stiff and her head hurt when, late at night, she finally laid the mirror aside. She spent several hours, into the gray birth of dawn, studying her teleportation spell. Like all magic-users, she expended the knowledge of a spell when she cast it, and she required a period of study before she could relearn the incantation. The more powerful the spell, the more complicated the routine required to rememorize it. Teleportation was a mighty spell, and thus its reabsorption took a significant amount of time. Despite her fatigue, she found that she grasped the spell easily, its symbols and commands flaring vividly in her mind.

Finally she was finished, but she still wasn't ready for sleep. Instead, she turned to the tome she had been perusing earlier, the volume detailing a host of tactics and procedures for traveling throughout the known planes of existence. It was heady stuff, but Deirdre absorbed it easily, as she did all her reading. She learned much about the dangers, and potentials, of working one's way through the ether, communicating with distant realms for good or ill.

Particularly entrancing was the discussion of a small village that existed some thousand years ago. It had been menaced by a creature from the Lower Planes, and the beast had only been vanquished when the village cleric identified the two symbols holding most power over the monster's plane of origin-in this case, a circle encased within a square. Then the townsfolk had plowed the requisite symbols into the dirt of a lush field and goaded the creature into the trap. At that point, a simple teleportation spell had sufficed to banish the creature back to its unholy lair.

Finally, that lesson completed, Deirdre slept, uncaring of anything for several hours. When she finally awakened in the late morning, it was with the languorous ease of a well-fed feline. She allowed the sunshine to wash over her, basking in the warmth.

When she eventually rose, she didn't partake of the bread and cheese that had been delivered to her anteroom. Instead, she turned to the mirror.

Quickly an image came into focus. It was a picture of Synnoria, the valley that was no longer pastoral. Stark lines of black earth, splintered trees, and muddy wreckage marred the green fields, and Deirdre quickly observed the image of Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater. The beast, rolling smoothly, rapidly forward on its three legs, moved resolutely down the valley.

For the moment, Deirdre could see no sign of her mother or sister, nor of their companions. But then a small group of riders thundered into sight, and when Keane's lightning bolt exploded against the monster, she knew beyond a doubt that she had found the party of Ffolk.

Deirdre leaned closer to get a better look at the tiny figures in the mirror. A tiny smile creased her mouth. She didn't know why, but she found the spectacle in the looking glass strangely amusing.

"Who's hurt?" asked the queen, her voice a harsh note of reality amid the dreamlike silence that followed the battle.

No one replied, but the companions all held their weapons ready, staring after the diminishing form of the monster as it moved down the valley.

"Pawldo. ." Alicia spoke her friend's name as if in a daze. "We have to avenge him!"

Robyn laid a hand upon her daughter's shoulder, but her look followed the creature that had slain their friend. The princess gazed after the beast as well, but her mind recalled only the smiling halfling who had brought her treats since she was a little girl. He can't be dead! She tried to lie to herself, but her recent memories stubbornly reminded her of the truth.

Then, as if for the first time, the High Queen turned to look at the two disheveled Llewyrr, the pair whose plight had drawn them into the attack in the first place.

"Brigit?" she asked tentatively.

"Robyn-or is it 'Your Majesty'?" replied the elf, shock written across her features.

"Yes," said the human woman, adding a wry laugh. "Though not so unchanged by time as yourself."

"You saved our lives …" the elfwoman realized with dawning amazement, quickly turning to suspicion. "And yet by all rights you should not even be here! How did you pass our border? What brings you here at all?"

"Those reasons can wait until later," said the High Queen in a tone as firm as Brigit's. She indicated the tracks of the monster, scoured in the black dirt. "We have a more pressing problem now!"

"The Llewyrr have a problem. This is an invasion of Synnoria, not Corwell," the sister knight replied stiffly. "Your aid is appreciated. As I indicated, your presence saved our lives."

"Our actions saved your lives!" Alicia snapped, indignant at the elfwoman's arrogance. She would have spoken further except that her mother raised a hand.

"This monster is a horror that menaces all Gwynneth," Robyn declared. "And therefore, it is my problem. I am the monarch of the lands beyond your valley! Whether it ravages all Synnoria while we stand here in discussion, or whether we work together to stop it is up to you."

The humans in the party stood silent. Even the elves seemed taken aback. Brigit's eyes flashed, but she worked visibly to hold her tongue. Clearly the situation called for urgency. . and cooperation.

"You are right… Your Majesty. It has been too long since I have seen a human. I had come once more to think of you as the group that is the danger, instead of remembering the individuals who were my friends. Forgive my lack of grace."

"I understand," Robyn answered. "Now-what was that thing? And where is it going?"

They gathered the horses while they talked, mounting an elf behind Alicia and Hanrald, who were the best riders.

Pawldo! He's lost-gone forever, Alicia realized with a tearing pain in her heart. Her eyes blurred, and she went through the motions of riding without thinking. It took a great effort to clear her head enough to listen to the conversation between Robyn and Brigit.

"… not from this world, nor any place I have ever heard described," the elfwoman was saying. "There are legends, more than a millennia old, of a three-legged giant who preyed upon the elves. I cannot help but wonder if this is an incarnation of the Elf-Eater." She said nothing about the Fey-Alamtine or the recent flight of the Thy-Tach.

"It is most assuredly a being from one of the Lower Planes," Keane observed, riding beside the pair, "requiring a very powerful force to call it hence-not an easy gate to open nor to control."

"Gate?" Brigit's face had gone pale, though she said nothing further. She looked furtively away from Alicia as the princess stared, puzzled, at the elven horsewoman.

"Can we send it back … to its own plane?" asked the queen.

"Not a chance that I know of," said Keane, before turning to Brigit. "Unless you have some wizardry in this valley of yours that goes beyond anything I've ever seen!"

"I fear not," replied Brigit. "From what I've seen of your powers, no elven sorcerer could hope to offer something beyond your ken."

"If we can't send it away, we'll have to kill it," observed Brandon, who had been brooding in silence since the battle. His face focused into a grimace of determination as he spoke. It was obvious that his anger had focused into this clear and warlike purpose.

"Yes," agreed Brigit simply.

But none of them had any idea how.

Deirdre reclined on her bed, enjoying the spectacle in the mirror. She had been thrilled by the battle with the Elf-Eater, shocked-and horribly fascinated-by Pawldo's gruesome death, and now intrigued by the challenge presented by the extraplanar beast.

She wondered, for a moment, why she felt no sorrow, no grief, over the death of the halfling she had known all her life. True, she had always thought the Lord of Lowhill a somewhat pompous stuffed shirt, but she had seen him several times a year throughout her life, and he had been a good friend of her parents. Nevertheless, his death triggered no particular emotion in the youngest Kendrick.

The specter of the Elf-Eater, on the other hand, drew her attention with a secret, forbidden excitement. The memory of her recent readings thrilled in her blood, for she now understood how the gates and the planes worked.

She doubted whether the Elf-Eater could be slain. Such was the root of its might that its true life-force existed in some nether place far removed from the world of the Realms. Without access to that soul, those who attacked the beast could at most hope to vanquish the incarnation appearing in the present time and place. If that were accomplished, the thing would be forced back to its lair.

Yet even that relatively straightforward task, she thought, may well prove beyond the abilities of the elves and their human allies. In her readings, the task of controlling a beast such as this required careful research and diligent preparation.

Research? Her lips curled in a tight smile. She rose, padding across the floor in her bare feet to the table where stood her great stack of books. Without hesitation, she lifted several tomes out of the way, found the one that she wanted, and returned to her bed.

There she started to read.

A vast ridge, emerald green in color, loomed beside Sinioth. Soon the towers of great manors, lairs to the noble scrags of the Coral Kingdom, dotted the rolling sea bottom. Great fields of kelp, tended by sahuagin overseers and mermen and dolphin slaves, drifted through the warm currents overhead, while a rolling horizon of coral edifices and dark, green-shaded valleys sprawled in all directions.

Sinioth, in the body of the giant squid, swam with the king of the sahuagin, Sythissal. In these depths, the body of evil's avatar showed as a murky shadow on the coral seabed-the huge, blunt trunk, the long tentacles trailing behind, the powerful flukes driving the creature through the water. The humanoid fishman swam with powerful kicks of his legs, eager to obey the commands of his great master. Together the two would make known the wishes of Talos.

The approach of the giant squid drew scrags and sahuagin, the inhabitants of the submarine city of Kyrasti, from their towers and domes. Great legions of the finned, fanged humanoids swam behind Sinioth as he approached the highest reef, climbing again to where the dark water gave way to soft shades of green and blue.

Before him loomed a place of towering spires. Curved domes of clear shell arched over many enclosed dwellings, while other places spiraled upward, open to the sea on all sides.

A great thrumming sound boomed through the sea, summoning the warriors and the nobles of the Coral Kingdom. A huge scrag swam forth from the palace gates, trailing delicate chains of gold and silver.

This mighty sea troll stood more than ten feet tall when he settled his webbed feet on the coral stair. His scaled skin rippled over folds of taut sinew, and his mouth gaped, sharklike, to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. Unlike his smaller cousins, the sahuagin, the scrag had no row of sharp spines down his back, but his head was covered with a kelplike growth of hair that waved about his face in the current, concealing his mouth one moment and then drifting aside at the next.

"Greetings, Master," gurgled this mighty one, floating forward to prostrate himself before the giant squid. "Welcome to Kyrasti, to the palace of Krell-Bane, King of the Sea. Our master, Talos, has brought us together for a great cause!"

Yet even as he groveled, the huge sea troll looked sideways at his new masters, his eyes reflecting jealousy, resentment. . and hatred.