white-knuckled fingers from the gilded frame of her enchanted mirror.
'It is no good, Laeral,' he said firmly, taking the woman by her shoulders and turning her to face him. 'Everywhere, it is the same thing. All the gates to Evermeet have been barred. There is nothing you or I or anyone else can do to change this.'
'But this elfgate is different! No one should be able to close it. Do you not remember how we struggled simply to conceal and move it?'
'If ever anything in this world went as it should, rather than as it does, it is possible that we would all perish from the shock,' Khelben said without thought of humor. 'Laeral, I would give anything if this were otherwise. You must accept that the battle for Evermeet is in the hands of her People.'
The woman moaned and sank forward into the archmage's embrace. 'We could make a difference, Khelben. You and I, my sisters. There must be a way we can help!'
The mage stroked Laeral's silvery hair, a strange shade that proclaimed her elven heritage and served as a reminder of the ties that bound the woman to Evermeet. Improbably, the human mage and the elven queen had long ago become fast friends, and Laeral wore on her finger one of the elfrunes that named her a trusted agent of Evermeet's queen. But even the magic of the ring had been silenced, its fey light blotted out by the strange pall that had fallen over the distant island.
Evermeet was truly alone.
'Trust in the elves,' the archmage urged her. 'They have weathered many storms, and may yet find their way to a port in this one.'
Laeral slipped away from the shelter of Khelben's arms. 'There is more,' she whispered as tears began to spill down her cheeks. 'Oh, there is more. I never told you about Maura…'
Flying high above the trees of Evermeet, Maura clung to fistfuls of golden feathers and leaned down low over the giant eagle's neck. Her black hair whipped wildly about her in the rush of wind, and her face was grim as she scanned the ground below for sign of the elf-eater's passage.
Finally she caught sight of the monster as it crashed through a stream, sending water spraying wildly upward in sheets and flying droplets that glistened briefly in the bright morning light.
'Down here!' she shouted to her eagle mount, daring to let go with one hand in order to point. 'Follow that thing!'
'Ooh. Big bug,' the eagle commented as he eyed the domed carapace of the monstrous elf-eater. 'Crack shell, get meat for many eagles. We two not-elves fight that?'
'Eventually. First we must fly past it to Corellon's Grove and warn the elves there of its approach. Do you know where it is?'
'Hmph! Know where every rabbit den is. You tell, I find. Fight soon, yes?'
'Soon,' Maura agreed.
The eagle banked sharply as the elf-eater veered toward the east. Maura clutched at the bird's feathers as the eagle redoubled his efforts. The speed stole her breath; the buffeting force of his beating wings alone nearly tore her from her perch.
Fast though the eagle was, several moments passed before the giant bird was able to pull ahead of the monster. An eternity seemed to slip by before Maura caught sight of the elven temples.
'Set me down over there,' she shouted, pointing to a domed, green-crystal shrine.
'Not sit there,' the eagle countered. 'See elf enemy by river, many many. Fish-people, very bad. We fight now, yes?'
'Fight now, not!' Maura screamed, letting go of one handhold to pound on the eagles' back. 'Warn elves first!'
The bird darted a puzzled look over his shoulder. 'You talk funny.'
Maura shrieked in pure frustration. She leaned forward and talked loud and fast into the eagle's ear. 'Your people know of the elf king? Well, his daughter is there in one of those buildings. If we don't get her away, the big bug will eat her!'
The eagle let out a piercing cry that matched Maura's for rage and surpassed it in sheer power. 'Bug eat Zaor's elf-chick, not,' he promised grimly. Without further warning, he swung around in a tight circle and then dipped into a screaming dive.
Kacing wind tore at Maura's streaming clothes and stung her eyes into near-blindness. She buried her face in the eagle's neck feathers and clung to the creature with all her might. The sudden, frenetic battering of wings against wind warned her of their eminent landing. She lifted her head and squinted. Her eyes flew open wide, heedless of the painful wind.
They were flying directly toward the elf-eater's churning maw.
There was little that Maura could do, but she instinctively seized a knife from her belt to throw into that gaping, ravenous cavern-although she doubted it would inconvenience the monster in the slightest. Nor did she have any confidence that the eagle's attack would avail. The creature apparently thought that his giant hooked talons and rending beak were sufficient to the challenge. Unlike Maura, he had not seen the elf-eater at work.
'Up! Up!' she shrieked.
The eagle responded to the urgency in her voice. He tilted his wings to get the flow of wind beneath them and began to pull up into a soaring rise.
Too late. A long tentacle shot forward and seized the eagle by the leg. The bird came to a painfully abrupt halt. Maura did not. She sailed over the eagle's head and landed with bone-jarring force amid the flowers of one of the temple gardens.
Ignoring the surging pain that coursed through her every limb, the woman leaped to her feet, her dagger ready.
Sprays of golden feathers filled the air, mingling with the furious screams of the captured eagle. The giant bird put up a brave fight, but despite its struggles the monster drew it slowly, inexorably, toward its rapacious maw. Maura lifted her dagger high and started forward.
'Don't!' warned the eagle as its fierce eyes fell upon his fellow 'not-elf.' 'Go find Zaor's elf-chick!'
For a moment the woman hesitated. It was not in her to leave an ally, or turn away from battle.
'Go!' screamed the eagle. He was jerked sharply toward the monster. There was a horrid crunching sound, and then his massive wings dropped limp.
Maura turned and ran for the tower that was Angharradh's temple. Even as she did, she realized that she was probably too late. If Ilyrana was anything like her younger brother, she would not use her clerical magic to flee from this place. The princess would try to stop the elf-eater, even at the cost of her life.
Maura found herself in sudden and complete accord with this, even though Ilyrana's death would mean Maura would almost certainly lose Lamruil to the duties of his clan and its crown.
The thought made her chest ache with a dull, hollow pain, but somehow her sorrow seemed a small thing compared with the evil facing her adopted home. She understood with her whole heart the choice that Lamruil had made, the choice that Ilyrana would almost certainly make. Nor could Maura do otherwise. If she could help Ilyrana, she would do it.
Wave after wave of sahuagin invaders swarmed the coasts of Evermeet, overwhelming the elven vessels and slipping through to fight the elves hand to hand on the red-stained shores.
For two days the battle raged. When at last some of the creatures broke past the elven defenders, they roiled inland, taking to the Ardulith river and swimming up into the very heart of Evermeet. Behind them came the scrags, terrible creatures that devoured with grim delight any being that had fallen to the talons and tridents of the fishmen.
Along the way, villagers and fisherfolk gathered to do battle. Bonfires dotted the shores of the Ardulith, and clouds of oily smoke roiled into the skies as the elven fighters consigned the slain sea trolls to the flames.
In the waters beyond Evermeet's shore, the Sea elves struggled to hold back the tidal wave of invaders. But they, too, had been taken unawares by the massive, multisided attack. Those Sea elves on patrol fought as best they could, but all others were trapped inside their coral city by a siege force of enormous size. The kraken and the dragon turtle that patrolled the waters fed well, but even they could not hold back the swarms of sea creatures that swept over the elven shores.
The elven navy, the wonder of the seas, fared somewhat better. In the waters beyond Evermeet's magical shields, elven man-o-wars and swanships battled against a vast fleet of pirate ships. They sent ship after ship into
