The Coral Kingdom tdt-2

by Douglas Niles

  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, nothi
ng 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!"