The Coral Kingdom

by Douglas Niles

  “It seems pointless to continue up this gully,” agreed Robyn, with an appraising look at the steep climb before them. “We must have passed the trail somewhere below.”

  “That’s the smartest suggestion I’ve heard in days!” agreed the halfling heartily.

  “Nothing like a bit of climbing to get the blood flowing, though. Don’t you agree?” said Hanrald, with a hearty clap on the back for Keane.

  The mage scowled but climbed stiffly to his feet. “This means we go down for a while, right?” he checked.

  “Due south,” Brandon noted. “Until we figure out where the valley curved from east and west.”

  The descent passed quickly, though they moved with careful attention to their surroundings. Keane constantly checked the magical emanations from the surrounding ridge, particularly the steep faces toward the east and north, reporting that the intensity of the enchantment remained steady. Robyn studied her surroundings each step of the way, seeking some feature that would trigger a memory. Brandon kept an eye on the sun, carefully watching their direction of travel.

  All of them noticed the gradual change in the terrain as the narrow draw slowly widened, and the cliff walls rolled back to rounded ridges on either side. The ground leveled, and the stream beside them grew placid, losing the urgency that had formerly carried it frothing from the heights. Now it meandered, deep and murky, between earthen banks and grassy meadows.

  “Look! We’re going west now!” Brandon’s voice carried the excitement of discovery, and the significance of the news could not be underplayed.

  “The valley appears to run straight—but here it goes east and west, and a mile back it flows north to south!” Alicia realized.

  “That’s the illusion—to make a curved valley appear to be straight!” Keane pointed out.

  Robyn held up a hand, silencing the others instantly. They waited as the woman removed her staff from its lashings to her saddle and gently placed the butt of the shaft on the ground. She closed her eyes and murmured a brief phrase of a simple spell. It was an enchantment of detection, but unlike Keane’s spell, it didn’t search for the presence of magic. Instead, she sought a far different thing—a thing she normally would never have associated with Synnoria, except for words that the vision of the wolf had said to her on the previous night.

  Now she performed a spell to detect evil.

  For a long while, the queen felt no triggering response, no indication of any presence that was other than natural or benign. But then, just as she began to despair of success, a tiny flicker of darkness and dread tugged at the fringes of her awareness.

  Whatever it was, the malignancy remained distant. Yet even through the filter of several miles, she felt the power of this evil, the terrible menace it represented.

  Quickly she opened her eyes. The detection spell was a glowing spot in her subconscious, the sense of direction compelling and accurate. She knew which way to go now.

  “The route to Synnoria must lie—there!” Robyn pointed, surprising even herself with her certainty.

  They followed the direction she indicated to look skeptically at a tiny rivulet of water trilling over a series of precipitous waterfalls, spilling from a lofty height to join the stream before them from the opposite bank.

  “Just crossing the river to get over there looks impossible!” Alicia objected. “How could you have come that way—on horses?”

  “I know I was never under water,” Pawldo inserted. “That’s the kind of thing I tend to remember!”

  “The crossing is not quite impossible,” Hanrald announced. The earl had wandered over to the streambed, and now he gestured to the ground at his feet. “There’s a ford here—not very obvious or well used. In fact, it looks as though someone doesn’t want it to be found!”

  The others joined him, and they all saw that several flat rocks had been placed to form steps leading down into the stream. A ridge of gravel several feet wide barely visible under the water, led to a similar avenue on the opposite bank. The ford itself looked to be no more than three feet deep, though much deeper water approached, and flowed away from, the spot.

  “That’s it!” Robyn cried. “We crossed here—or at a ford just like this! I remember the steps leading up out of the water.”

  “You might be onto something,” admitted Lord Pawldo.

  They quickly mounted, and the horses needed little urging to enter the cold, slow-moving, water. They crossed in single file and soon emerged onto the far bank.

  “It doesn’t look nearly so steep from here!” the princess noted. The slope still climbed away from them, but at a much more gentle angle than before. It looked as if they would have no difficulty walking, though she still doubted that they could ride. Still, she urged her horse forward, and the animal climbed smoothly up a gradual incline. The waterfalls that had trickled downward had disappeared, though the river remained deep and regal beside her. Then, in a flash, the princess understood.

  “The river! It comes from here. It looks like a trickle from over there, but this is the real valley! That ravine we followed before is just a little side stream!”

  In moments, the excitement of the truth propelling them, they moved forward at a trot, climbing the slowly ascending valley on a much better trail than the illusionary diversion they had followed earlier. It turned out to be an even more gentle grade that Alicia had perceived from this side of the stream. The farther they progressed, the more normal the valley around them became.

  As they rode, however, Robyn dampened their joy somewhat with an explanation of the spell she had used to find the path. “It was a very strong emanation of evil,” she told them. “We have to proceed with caution.”

  They rode with unsuppressed urgency, fearing what they would find, yet eager to make the discovery. They crossed the highland ridge, and finally the shimmering vista of Synnoria opened before them. In the distance, they saw the blue lake in the center of the main valley, the city of glass gleaming in the sunlight on a verdant island. A wooded side valley passed before them, and the trail dropped steeply toward its floor. They urged the horses down the path at a dangerous pace.

  As they plunged lower, Robyn remained alert for any of the seductive effects of Synnoria she had encountered before. But the wind that blew past her ears seemed mundane, and nothing like magic twinkled in the shaking branches of the trees. If anything, it seemed as if they rode into a place of oppression and fear.

  When they came to the trail of splintered trees, many of them more than an armspan in girth, the damage seemed like a monstrous effrontery to this place of beauty. They rode at a gallop now, unspeaking, following the spoor left by something of tremendous proportion and horribly destructive in its passage.

  Finally they broke from the enclosing trees, and several of their horses reared in sudden fright. Pools of water, churned to mud, dotted the field. Thousands of colorful fish flopped helplessly in the mud, suffocating. Across the meadow rose a thing that, at first, Alicia mistook for a small domed building.

  Then the building moved.

  * * * * *

  Talos and Malar relished the rampage of the Elf-Eater, vicariously feeding their evil natures on the killing and destruction wrought by their pet. The two gods were well pleased, but for different reasons—Talos, for the blow struck to the Moonshaes; and Malar, for the destruction in the great elven escape path.

  Yet the Destructor had other plans to make, and to this end he summoned his avatar, bidding Sinioth to appear in a guise of master in his new domain. Thus, beneath the waters of the Trackless Sea, Coss-Axell-Sinioth assumed the shape of a proper creature. Long tentacles trailed from his head, and a beaklike mouth clamped shut with crushing power. As large as a good-sized ship, the giant squid waited to hear his master’s words.

  At the same time, Talos summoned Sythissal, king of the sahuagin, into his immortal presence. The scaly creature, his humanoid body layered with supple sinew, a column of bristling spines extending down his back, soon floated befor
e the squid.

  “This is your master,” came the voice of Talos, like a distant landslide rumbling under the sea. “You will obey him in all his commands!

  “The two of you must journey to Kyrasti, to the great city of the sea trolls in the Coral Kingdom. There, you, Sythissal, are to assume personal command of the prisoner.

  “And you, my favorite pet”—the voice of Talos lowered to an affectionate growl—“are to prepare my minions for mastery of the Moonshaes!”

  5

  Pawldo of Lowhill

  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 thei
r 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.