The Coral Kingdom

by Douglas Niles

  “But Father lives! Doesn’t he?” The disturbing fear that the ambassador might have been lying pushed its way to the forefront of Alicia’s mind, but angrily she forced it back. “He must be alive! Can’t you tell somehow?”

  “Aye, Daughter. I believe that I can.” Robyn sighed, sinking to a stone bench beside the pool. Alicia sat beside her. “I didn’t realize it at first. When the news came that the ship was lost and everyone had drowned, I tried to accept the fact that Tristan was dead. There could be no other explanation, no other real hope.

  “Yet as the days and weeks went by, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. I dreamed about him almost every night, and there was something so real about those dreams that I came to believe that he must be alive somewhere.

  “Now this messenger comes, with these claims that they hold the High King prisoner, and I find it all too easy to believe.”

  “Then you must have faith, Mother!” Alicia insisted. “He’s lived this long, and when I get to Synnoria I promise that I’ll find a way to go after him!”

  Robyn smiled, forcing her expression to brighten. “I believe you, my daughter—and more than that, I will help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tomorrow, when you begin your journey along the Corwell Road in search of the Llewyrr, I intend to ride with you.”

  * * * * *

  During the long afternoon and evening, Deirdre watched the preparations of her sister’s party in the mirror of scrying. She viewed the scene with the same wry amusement with which she had greeted the images of the disrupted festival. She kept the fact of her spying crystal a secret, spending long hours secluded in her room while she observed the activities around the castle in the glass.

  Then, when Alicia, the queen, and their companions rode through the gate in the morning, she amused herself by watching their progress, trying to imagine the substance of their undoubtedly trivial conversations. The mirror provided no sound for the scene being observed.

  Eventually she tired of this eavesdropping and turned back to her books. She went about her own business, relieved that the burden of court and council could be delayed to some nebulous future hour. Deirdre had brought several tomes with her, carried in a large sack over her shoulder, and she spread these on the desk near the room’s window. Bright sunshine flooded the land of Corwell, and in its light, she would be able to read easily.

  She returned to a book she had started the day before, a treatise on travel—both voluntary and involuntary—through the ethereal stuff that connected the planes of existence. Her nimble mind absorbed each detail, recognizing where the writer overextended his arguments and where he had touched upon a real germ of truth.

  As she progressed through the book, the sun sank into the west and the household servants brought her some food and lit several candles for her reading. The former remained untouched and the latter burned low as the princess learned more, and more, and more.

  * * * * *

  The supple bay raced along Corwell Road, and Alicia gave the horse her head. Her companions trailed along the smooth surface of the highway, riding at the easy lope that for two days had carried them across central Corwell. Hanrald led the way, alternately lumbering forward on his huge war-horse or probing possible places of concealment along the road to either side, while Alicia and Robyn alternately raced, trotted, or walked. Keane, Brandon, Pawldo, and Tavish followed at a more sedate pace, trailing some distance behind the others for hours at a time.

  The journey to the borders of Synnoria would take three or four days. The first part of the trip followed good roads, but for the last day or two they must branch off the highway and enter the rougher country of the highlands. Once there, they intended to seek some entry into the elven realm. Alicia was determined not to worry about that problem until it confronted them.

  The companion who had most surprised Alicia rode at the side of the princess: the High Queen herself. The younger woman had not expected that her mother would want to accompany the party, yet now, as they rode together, Alicia couldn’t imagine traveling without her.

  Her mother had seemed like a new woman since the start of the journey. Years of age seemed to melt away from her, and she rode with a spirit almost equal to Alicia’s, who was quite skilled as a horsewoman. Robyn carried her own staff lashed to the saddle behind her and wore a plain silver torque around her neck, the symbol of her status as Great Druid.

  Both of them rode with renewed hopes, however tenuous. For the first time since Tristan’s disappearance, they had a course of action to follow; they could do something besides sit around and grieve. The challenges of their quest remained daunting, to be sure, but both mother and daughter felt confident that they would be able to deal with any obstacles that might arise.

  Rather than tiring, the horses had seemed to gain in strength and excitement as each day passed. Now, in the late morning of the third day, Alicia knew they must soon turn off the wide road, following the winding vale that the High Queen had described.

  Soon they found the turn, marked by a hill called Freeman’s Down. That night they made camp in a high valley, where an unseasonably chill wind scoured the ground and whistled through the trees. They built a great fire and huddled around its warmth, each of them wrapped within private thoughts, weighing their chances for success or failure.

  “Somewhere along here, off to our right, will be the valley that Tristan, Pawldo, and I came down when we left Synnoria,” Robyn told them, describing as best she could her experiences of twenty summers before. “I’m not sure that I’ll recognize it, though. We might have to try a few different routes.”

  “One of them will take us there—I’m sure of it!” Alicia proclaimed, and the others found her confidence heartwarming, but not necessarily contagious.

  “It can’t be that hard to find,” suggested Hanrald. “After all, Gwynneth itself isn’t very big, and we’re talking about a good-sized, populous valley located in a specific range of highlands!”

  “It’s not the size of Synnoria that gives it concealment,” argued Tavish heatedly. “It has more to do with the nature of the place. Legends say that a person can walk straight toward it, and then turn aside without even taking notice of the fact that he is near it. You’ll walk past and never know that you’ve missed it.”

  “But surely farmers and herdsmen around here must have some kind of idea!” objected Alicia.

  “You’ve seen the state of the country,” Keane pointed out, pleased with the verbal opening that would allow him to join the conversation. “We didn’t pass a single farm once we moved beyond the Corwell Road. And the grass was long—I don’t think the land is used by herdsmen either.”

  “The Ffolk sense that this land is not for mundane employment,” Robyn said. “Synnoria is a place of enchantment, of power that is drawn from the earth itself, not from the skills of mortal wizards. It’s the same power that gives life to the goddess and makes the Moonshae Islands a place of special beauty.”

  The queen paused, her face relaxing into a reflective smile. After a moment, she looked up, aware that the others waited for her to continue. “King—then he was ‘Prince’—Tristan and I came through here near the start of the Darkwalker War. It was the detour through Synnoria that allowed us to reach Corwell Road before an invading army of northmen, and also to gain the aid of dwarves from Myrloch Vale, and even a company of the Sisters of Synnoria.”

  The history of that war was well known to them all. The aid of the elven riders and their resolute captain, Brigit Cu’Lyrran, had proven decisive in stopping the original attacks against Corwell.

  “But the passage through Synnoria lingers in my mind,” continued the queen. “Perhaps because I didn’t see it. They blindfolded us, remember, Pawldo?”

  The halfling nodded, suppressing a shudder as he looked into the darkness beyond the camp.

  “They told us that the fabulous beauty of the place would surely drive us humans mad, and perhaps it would have, judging by
the sounds we heard. Even those—the trilling of waterfalls, the mingling of birdsong and breeze—would have captivated us all.…”

  “Except for the bard!” finished Tavish with a smile.

  “Indeed. The harpist Keren banged against his harp and made the most awful sounds you could imagine. For a full day, he kept it up while the sisters led us along their trails. Those jarring notes, I’m sure, were all that kept us alive. Finally we came out on a broad and rounded ridge. Synnoria was behind us.…”

  Robyn’s face grew sad as she remembered the darker moments in the path of her life since then. Suddenly she missed Tristan terribly, and it was all she could do to hold back her tears.

  “So you see, there’s a lot of magic to contend with,” warned Pawldo, wiggling a finger at Alicia. “I wouldn’t be surprised if half of us are turned into bugs before this is over!” His face was jocular, but his tone indicated more than a little apprehension on this point.

  Alicia slumped backward but didn’t concede defeat. “You can argue reality all you want,” she said, “but I’ve never doubted, from the moment we started out, that we’d find our way into that valley somehow!”

  “Hold that faith, child,” said Tavish with a soft laugh. “It may be all we need.”

  * * * * *

  “Arise, Ityak-Ortheel, and answer your master’s summons!”

  The command of Malar rang through the ether, past the vortices of the gods and down—far, far down—into the Abyssal depths of the lower planes. Here the one known as Elf-Eater raised its muck-streaked maw from the primordial sludge that was its home and, upon hearing the call, uttered a rumbling belch of assent.

  Talos observed the activities of his ally with cruel pleasure. The discovery of the platinum triangle on the Moonshae Islands had infused Malar with vengeful hatred. The Beastlord would waste no time in setting his pet creature against those insolent elves—and this vengeance suited the Stormbringer’s plans as well.

  The image of Malar’s muzzled skull, bristling with fangs and resting upon huge, many-taloned paws, appeared before the Elf-Eater. Slowly, with gruesome majesty, Ityak-Ortheel rose from the sheltering sludge until it crouched before the figure of its god. Only the illusionary presence of the deity allowed Malar to loom over his pet, for Ityak-Ortheel was itself the size of a massive dragon.

  But size was the thing’s only resemblance to those comparatively noble serpents. The Elf-Eater had a mouth but no teeth. Instead, the aperture was a moist, sucking hole in the side of the thing’s domelike body. The maw was capable of expanding to a gaping width or compressing into a long, probing snout, and it was surrounded by many long tentacles, each equipped with multiple, weblike pods used to trap a victim and drag it toward that obscene orifice.

  And also unlike a dragon, Ityak-Ortheel had no tail nor wings—and only three legs, each as broad as a gnarled oak stump. Upon those limbs, however, it could lumber as fast as a galloping horse. It had no eyes nor ears, but it could sense the presence of warm-blooded beings on all sides, and could easily distinguish which were elves.

  With the summons of Malar, all the Elf-Eater’s dim intellect focused on the gnawing emptiness within the great body. Quivering in eagerness, the elephantine shape awaited the further words of its god.

  The words it wanted to hear were not forthcoming. Instead, Malar seized the spiritual essence of Iytak Ortheel and hauled it upward into the ether. Malar focused his attention on the target, and Talos used his still-awesome power to enact a powerful spell.

  Iytak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater, shook its great body, exploding through a dark wall of stone to plant its three feet firmly on grassy soil. No longer did it fester in the pits of sludge, it knew. Instead, it had come to a place surrounded by a world of mortals … a place called Synnoria.

  A place of elves.

  4

  The Elf-Eater

  Robyn awakened suddenly amid the stillness of the sleeping camp. For a brief moment, her mind flashed back to younger days. How long had it been since she had slept beneath a canopy of stars? Too long, she decided.

  But then, in the clarity of her growing awareness, she wondered what it was that had interrupted her slumber. Sitting up and pulling her woolen cloak about her shoulders, she looked around the silent camp.

  The outline of a large, broad-shouldered man was visible some distance above the rest of them. She recognized Hanrald and remembered that the Earl of Fairheight had taken the midnight watch. A swift glance at the stars confirmed her estimate of the time.

  The unseasonal chill remained in the air, but to the High Queen, the brisk weather was a bracing welcome, an embrace of nature, ushering her back to her favorite domain.

  No longer questioning, Robyn followed an instinctive sense, slowly approaching the glowing mound of coals that marked the place where their fire had blazed hours earlier. She stopped several feet away from the firepit but close enough to feel the radiant warmth on her face, and then she spread the blanket apart with her arms, allowing the heat to caress her entire body.

  Slowly the dull red of the coals began to brighten, though the steady radiance of heat remained comfortably constant. Robyn stared at the embers, watching spots of light grow from orange pinpricks to blazing yellow circles in her eyes, as if she stared at the sun near noon of a high summer day.

  Yet instead of feeling pain, she felt a powerful sense of exultation, a kind of energy she hadn’t known for two decades.

  This was the power of the Earthmother, she knew, and it flowed into the willing woman who again was the Great Druid of that goddess.

  Finally the power became too great, and Robyn fell to her knees. Still she did not lower her eyes, and slowly the lights that dazzled her shifted into cooler spectrums—red, blue, and finally a pale violet that seemed to linger for hours, soothing the druid’s taut nerves and acting as a balm for the grave troubles that worried her.

  Then, when next Robyn raised her eyes, she saw a misty form begin to gather in the air above the fire. A whirling vapor coalesced in the night, growing more substantial as it slowed the rate of its rotation. Finally the mist solidified, just for a moment, into the image of a proud wolf’s-head. Yellow eyes gleamed at Robyn, seeming to blink against the darkness.

  “There is evil …” The wolf spoke to her, in a voice like the hunting cry of a distant pack. It pierced her heart with a plaintive, savagely beautiful song. At the same time, Robyn heard a firm undertone of danger, of a deep and imminent menace that intruded into this place like a cancerous tumor.

  The long, narrow jaws seemed to grin, revealing ivory fangs that gleamed in the darkness. The yellow eyes stared with unblinking intensity, bright and powerful. Robyn Kendrick opened her heart and her mind, letting the sign wash over her. She listened, for the first time since she had been a very young woman, to the pure voice of her goddess.

  “Seek … seek the evil.…” Again the soft cry floated through the night. “For there you will find good …”

  The sound and image faded for many wondrous minutes, as if the pack ranged over distant hills, each rise carrying the sound farther and farther, until nothing remained but the wind whispering among the full summer leaves.

  “I understand, my Mother,” Robyn said softly.

  The coals had sunk to mere shadowy remnants of their previous warmth. But as the queen returned to her bedrolls and wrapped her blanket against the chill, the warmth of the fire glowed with the warmth of her spirit and her mind.

  * * * * *

  Talloth cantered easily up the gentle forest trail, and Brigit felt the full joy of a Synnorian sunrise fill her body and her spirit. The morning had dawned clear, and the sun was no more than two handspans over the eastern horizon.

  These hours, when the mist still lingered among the trees and the flowers glistened with fresh dew, were the captain’s favorite time to ride. Llewyrr gardeners who had begun to work their fields waved as the silver knight on her white mare rode past.

  She came to the trout farm and turned Ta
lloth from the trail, riding among the clear pools that dotted this large glade in the forest. Several Llewyrr, breeders and netmen, looked up from their tasks. They were opening a sluicegate to fill a newly excavated pool.

  Brigit observed the brilliant fish darting back and forth in their clear pools. One pond held trout of purest golden color, each more than a foot long; another contained even larger fish, striped with the full spectrum of a rainbow. The fish would be introduced into the streams and lakes, ensuring that they remained a viable food source and a beautiful part of the natural scenery of Synnoria.

  After a few minutes, Brigit rode on, passing other Llewyrr who were hauling buckets full of fingerlings to the stream. Then, in a few moments, the full peace of the forest surrounded her again. She continued up the valley, intending to ride all the way to the Fey-Alamtine gate.

  Then she stiffened. A sound came to her, and Talloth halted instinctively. Hoofbeats approached down this same trail. In moments, she saw a flash of white in the woods, and then Brigit identified the form of one of her knights.

  The sister shouted at the sight of her captain.

  “Humans! They approach from the west, up the Vale of Clouds!” The knight’s shout of alarm sounded a jarring note in the pastoral sunrise. Brigit recognized the rider as Colleen, one of the border patrol. The pounding gallop of the white horse drowned out most of Colleen’s voice, but the urgency in the young scout’s demeanor was apparent to Brigit even from a half mile away.

  The captain spurred Talloth, and the mare leaped forward. In a few moments, they met and Brigit reined in, taking the bridle of the scout’s horse. The young Llewyrr rider, her blonde hair tossed raggedly by the wind in her ride, gasped for breath while Brigit gestured to her to collect herself.

  “I saw them myself,” Colleen reported after a moment. “Humans, about six of them. They ride horses—two of the steeds are as white as Synnorian mares!”