The Coral Kingdom

by Douglas Niles

  * * * * *

  Sinioth surged and thrashed in his fury. First had come the news that the prisoner had escaped his cell, and now the humans dared to come against him here, in Kyrasti! He had tried to prepare himself for this possibility, but the reality stunned him beyond disbelief.

  Sythissal, of course, had paid for his failure to secure the prisoner. The captor had been put to death—justice, to Coss-Axell-Sinioth. As he well knew, should he himself fail, Talos would show him no greater mercy.

  But Coss-Axell-Sinioth was not one to dwell upon his defeats, except as they fueled his rage and propelled him to vengeance. Now the prisoner, and then his rescuers, would pay for their arrogance and pride.

  18

  Floodwater

  Tristan looked up in amazement. Moments earlier, he had noticed a shadow across the emerald pane over his head, but when he saw the outline of a northman longship there, he thought he was losing his mind. The ship heeled over, presenting her beam to the window, showing a hull filled with humans!

  Then Tristan saw his wife and his daughter, faces he had forgotten in the haze of his drugging, but that now poured back with the full force of memory—and he was certain that he had gone mad.

  “Robyn! Alicia!” His voice came out in a strangled gasp. Tristan stood up, ignoring the chaos in the room behind him, and reached toward the high window with his one good hand, imploring.

  The tentacle grasped his ankle before he saw the giant squid’s attack. A powerful force jerked the king backward, toward the floor of the throne room. Never had water terrified him as much as it did now, when the full wealth of his life came flooding back.

  Desperately Tristan kicked at the tentacle around his leg, chopping with his dagger, realizing the blade was too dull to have much effect. He cast the useless weapon aside and struck with his bare hand and even the blunt end of his wrist, yet his resistance made no difference. Irresistible strength jerked him from the niche and into the water. Tristan barely captured a breath before the monster dragged him below the surface.

  The king ignored the pain flaming through his arm and focused his hatred and rage against the massive beast that sucked him under the water. The creature seemed full worthy of that hatred. Something unnatural lurked in those murderous red eyes, flaming like coals to either side of a beaklike mouth. Smaller tentacles flailed around the beast’s horrid maw, but the two massive tendrils securing Tristan had no need of help.

  A figure swam before him, and Tristan saw Marqillor approaching the squid. The merman wielded a large trident, acquired from a vanquished scrag, and now he shoved the weapon with full force into the giant head, flexing his powerful tail in a surge that pressed the tines deep into the creature’s monstrous body. The squid twisted away, thrashing at Marqillor with a tentacle, movement enough to allow Tristan to fling his head and torso out of the water, gasping a breath of air before the monster once again pulled him down.

  Other mermen swarmed around the monstrous beast, striking at the squid with whatever they held, sometimes with merely their hands and tails. Tristan kicked with all his might, struggling to break free. He cursed the mutilation of his left arm, feeling that if only he had two good hands, he would be able to defeat the beast. Even in his oxygen-starved delirium, however, he recognized the thought as madness. The monster was too huge, too mighty to be vanquished by a man and certainly not here, in its natural environment. Finally the air exploded from Tristan’s lungs and the fight abandoned his body. It required too great an effort to hold onto his breath.

  But then he felt strong arms around him. As his mouth opened reflexively to gasp in water that would choke him, he felt a merman’s face before him, and instead of water, he inhaled a lifesaving lungful of air.

  The merman who saved him paid with his own life, Tristan saw, as the writhing squid wrapped the fellow in looping tentacles, whipping him toward that crushing beak. Other fishfolk tried to save their comrade, but it was too late. The mouth crunched over the victim’s midriff, and the sound of breaking bones snapped horribly through the water. The dying merman’s mouth gaped, emitting a cloud of thick blood into the water.

  Once again Tristan managed to work free, pulling himself to the surface and splashing into the niche, finally, as he watched for tentacles. Alone and unarmed, of course, there was little he could do to defend himself if the squid determined to have him.

  But at least, he vowed, the monster wouldn’t get him without a fight.

  * * * * *

  “This way!” Hanrald cried, driving his huge sword through the body of a scrag that swam in his path. The human dove into the narrow passage, closely followed by Brigit, the sister knight stabbing another pursuing sea troll as she guarded their rear.

  They darted around a corner in the passageway, and Brigit stopped to pull a metal lever protruding from the wall. Immediately a large rock settled from the ceiling to the floor behind them, pushing bubbling water out of the way and solidly blocking pursuit—but also barring their return along the same route.

  The knights paused to catch their breath.

  “That worked even better than I thought it would—our diversion,” Brigit gasped, flashing a wan smile. Though dark water pressed around them, thanks to Keane’s spells they were able to talk and breath as easily as they did on the surface.

  “How many were chasing us?” Hanrald wondered aloud, remembering the frantic minutes of pursuit, the fleeing fighters just barely able to outdistance a whole swarm of swimming monsters. All of them, he thought with satisfaction, had been distracted from their original target, the Princess of Moonshae.

  The pair had battled their way through a savage cordon of sea troll guards, finding that the enchantment of the spell gave them great freedom of movement. They could slash and parry as if only air blocked their blades. Thus their superior skill outclassed the scrags, who, though they fought in their natural environment, employed little in the way of tactical finesse. Some of the monsters didn’t even carry weapons, and those who did used them primarily for thrusting—easy attacks to parry for a skilled swordsman or swordswoman.

  Also, the two knights found that they could run at very nearly full speed, thanks to the effects of the spell of free action—their feet found solid purchase on the sea floor, and the water did not obstruct their forward progress.

  “I think we diverted a hundred, at least—maybe more,” Brigit guessed. “Enough, I hope, to let the others get into the palace.” How they would get away again, with the full wrath of the Coral Kingdom aroused against them, remained an unaddressed problem.

  “They’re still out there,” said Hanrald, leaning his ear to the stone. Sounds of prying and scraping came clearly through the water, though as yet the barrier showed no willingness to budge.

  “Let’s hope they don’t break it down for a few minutes,” groaned Hanrald, exhausted from the long minutes of battle and flight. They had raced along the circular wall around the undersea palace until they reached this labyrinth of towers and tunnels. Now, in one of those tunnels, they saw the rock that separated them from their enemies start to wobble.

  “How long before we should get back to the ship?” Hanrald mused.

  Brigit looked at him and shrugged. “Maybe we ought to move on,” she suggested. Keane had told them that the spells had a very finite time limit, and neither of them had to stretch his imagination to come up with a picture of what would happen when the magical protection wore off.

  Hanrald started down the corridor at an easy lope. Brigit easily kept pace as the passageway curved through a long descent. Abruptly it ended, opening onto a balcony carved into the side of a deep undersea chasm. The far side of the chasm stretched as a sheer cliff no more than a hundred feet away.

  “They’re coming after us,” reported Brigit, spotting the swimming forms of several scrags following them down the winding tunnel.

  “Let’s go!” shouted Hanrald, raising his sword in one fist and taking Brigit’s hand in the other. The pair leaped from the
balcony, kicking their feet and swimming with their hands. The force of their jump carried them far from their start, floating through the water like birds soaring through the air. Far below, the base of the chasm darkened to a midnight black—and then they were past, landing on a balcony across the canyon much like the one they had jumped from. Without hesitating, they darted through a doorway into another submarine passage, still racing forward.

  Abruptly they came into a large room, domed like many others they had seen. A dozen tunnels opened in the walls of the chamber, and an equal number of diamond-shaped crystal panels spiraled around the ceiling.

  “Which way?” wondered Hanrald, at a loss.

  “We can’t go back,” Brigit informed him after a quick look behind. “We’d better move on, quick!”

  Hanrald turned to the right and charged down one of the passageways. Immediately a large scrag loomed before him. The creature jabbed with a trident from a darkened niche in the side of the corridor. Surprised, the knight grunted as the weapon pierced his rib cage. Hanrald staggered back in mute astonishment, watching the water around him begin to redden.

  Brigit whirled past him, disemboweling the scrag in one vicious slash. The creature floated to the side, but a quick look back showed her that their swimming pursuers were closing in rapidly.

  Beside her, Hanrald’s eyelids drooped, and his motionless body drifted toward the floor. As gently as possible, the elfwoman nudged the knight into the alcove that had concealed the scrag. Then she turned to face the pursuing sea trolls, deflecting the lead scrag’s harpoon and splitting his face down the middle.

  More of the monsters swam forward, but the sister knight sliced and slashed so skillfully that each of the beasts felt the edge or the tip of her blade. Warily they backed away from the elfwoman’s silver sword, content to hover in the passageway beyond, blocking escape to the right and left but making no immediate move to attack.

  Hanrald’s eyes fluttered open. The knight’s consciousness returned slowly, belaboredly, mainly because of an awareness of crippling pain. Each breath he drew slashed like a hot iron through his chest. He tried to focus his vision on something, anything.

  He noticed a brightening of the shadows in the back of their niche. He forced himself to a sitting position, looking closer, increasingly hopeful with what he saw.

  “Brigit!” he said, intending to bark commandingly and surprised that his voice came forth as a mere feeble gasp. Nevertheless, the elf woman turned around after checking to see that the scrags remained well back from her blade. “Look—stairs. They must lead to one of those towers above the palace.”

  The sister knight saw that a tightly spiraling stairway led steeply upward from their alcove. “Let’s go!” she exclaimed. “We can try to get the attention of the ship from there!”

  Hanrald smiled warmly, grasping one of her hands in his. “A good plan,” whispered the earl, “for you. You’ll have to leave me here to distract them. You make your escape—get back to the ship!”

  Brigit smiled and said nothing. Instead, she leaned over and kissed the human knight on the lips.

  “Up! Climb, dammit. I can hold them, but not forever!” groaned the man, struggling to sit up and look around.

  “Shhhh,” whispered Brigit, holding his head in her hands. Hanrald had lost a lot of blood, but she reduced its flow by pressing a cloth against the wound. “In a little while we’ll go together.”

  Hanrald shook his head, wincing in pain at the movement.

  “Don’t argue,” urged the elf. “Just rest for a moment.”

  Hanrald looked around wildly, as if he had to change her mind. Then he slumped backward, relaxing with a wan smile. “We took on a good lot of the buggers, didn’t we?” said the earl with a low chuckle. “And we led’em on quite a chase as well.”

  Brigit looked back into the corridor. She counted at least a dozen scrags, but all of them floated well back from the alcove, having learned the painful lesson taught by the elfwoman’s sword.

  “We make a good team,” she said, turning back to Hanrald. She was horrified by the pallor of his skin, the distant expression in his eyes. Don’t die! she urged him silently.

  Suddenly, with surprising strength, Hanrald sat up and looked into the sister knight’s eyes. “I love you, Brigit Cu-’Lyrran!” he pledged, and his own eyes were serious and sane. “And never did I think to be saying that to one who was as good with a sword as myself!”

  She smiled and kissed him, wanting to say the same thing to him, but somehow she was unable to speak. The thought, after all these centuries, that she would come to love a human seemed to her like some grand joke of the gods if she thought about it too much.

  “Come on,” she whispered, after several more minutes. “Let’s climb those stairs.”

  * * * * *

  In her mirror, Deirdre watched the desperate approach of the longship. She saw the splendors of the Coral Kingdom, of the Kyrasti, and the savage defenders swarming out to battle for their home. Her inspections drifted downward, and she noticed with interest the presence of her father, the king. The sight of his peril brought a strange thrill to her heart.

  Yet her attention focused most intently on the body of the giant squid—or, more accurately, on the corrupt soul encased within that grotesque body. She wanted to strike out at Malawar, to punish him further for the hurts, real and imaginary, he had inflicted upon her. Desperately, grievously, she wanted to return those injuries a thousandfold. And at the same time, she wanted to use him, to exploit his destruction for her own gain.

  Deirdre grew more and more fascinated by the avatar of evil, watching the huge body flex through the submarine chamber, thrashing in battle with lesser creatures. Partly her desire was for vengeance, but in greater part it was a lust, a craving for the power that the great beast contained within its unnatural form. Power that could belong to Deirdre, once she prepared the means of mastering it.

  Yet, still, she lacked a weapon.

  * * * * *

  “Down!” commanded Brandon. He pointed, in case Knaff misunderstood his intent, but the bow of the longship already dipped in response to the helmsman’s touch. Below, the huge dome of the palace rose through the emerald depths. For the time being, the Princess of Moonshae was free of immediate enemies. Except for the scrags who had charged away in pursuit of Hanrald and Brigit, the monsters who had resisted their initial approach were all dead. Even so, the air in the boat remained dense and fetid. Sweat rolled from each crew member in steaming rivulets.

  “Hold on!” the captain shouted in warning. “We’re going to ram!”

  Alicia clung to the mast, her sword in her hand and her eyes on the huge crystal pane before the Princess of Moonshae’s bow. The longship rocked downward as Knaff pressed on the tiller, and then she lunged ahead, the proud figurehead with the gleaming silver helm driving toward the smooth, transparent surface.

  The crash nearly tore Alicia loose from her perch, but she held tightly to the stout timber, staring in shock as the emerald plane shattered. A great bubble of air erupted around them as seawater plunged into the space of the huge undersea dome. The longship followed the flood, the narrow bow plummeting through the aperture into the dome. Ten feet of the hull followed, and then the widening gunwales wedged firmly against the sides of the shattered window.

  A gangly figure tumbled past Alicia, and she saw the flailing form of her changestaff spilling like a felled tree toward the bow. Branches thrashed out as the thing tumbled past the figurehead, and then the trailing limbs wrapped around the wooden prow. The tree being arrested its fall at the last possible minute, an instant before it tumbled into the maelstrom below.

  White water flooded past them, thundering in a cascading torrent into the vast, circular chamber, but still the enchanted blanket of air over the longship maintained its protective presence.

  Alicia searched desperately below, seeking her father through a chaos of white water and flailing bodies. Then she saw Tristan in the grip of a wri
thing snake. She watched in horror, screaming unconsciously, as the king disappeared beneath the surface, and at the same time, she made out the huge creature thrashing there. Appalled, she understood that the thing grasping her father was not a snake but a mere appendage of a much larger monstrosity.

  Tristan flailed back to the surface, grasping about with his hand, pounding his arm against the tendrils around him. He reached for something, anything, but nothing met his grip, and once more he vanished.

  Robyn dove forward, and once again Alicia saw the sleek form of white and black, the whale’s teeth and the powerful, driving flukes. The killer whale dove at the squid, and her wide jaws clamped around the widest tentacle, near the base of the writhing limb. Both sea creatures flailed through the great room, and Alicia saw her father flung free from the squid’s grasp.

  A huge scrag swam out of the shadows, a long trident extended before him. The beast drove the tines of the weapon into Robyn’s flank, and the killer whale twisted reflexively, releasing the squid with an involuntary flexing of her powerful jaws.

  The tentacled horror dove away at high speed, coming to rest in a murky cloud at the bottom of the huge chamber. Alicia realized that it had released the cloud, providing its own cover as it retreated from the fight.

  But now another wave of sahuagin and scrags attacked the trapped Princess of Moonshae, swarming from the surrounding towers and walls as if they had gathered their strength for this massive rush. In the chamber, Alicia saw things that looked like humans, until she realized that they had huge fishlike tails. Mermen! Several of the aquatic beings swam across the room to circle protectively before Tristan.

  Water continued to pour into the cavernous dome through the shattered window, and consquently the air pocket shrank steadily, raising the level of the choppy surface. The High King splashed to one of the niches in the wall, but soon the rising sea forced him out. Swimming, he started through the turbulence toward the Princess of Moonshae’s prow, the proud figurehead jutting through the ceiling, now no more than a dozen feet above him.