The Coral Kingdom

around and around the column, carried steadily upward until this point. For a few brief moments, the huge object seemed to float in the air, but then it plummeted seaward with steadily increasing speed. Hundreds of tiny forms spilled free, writhing in the air and clutching for some kind of support.

The raft struck the water flat on its hull, shooting spray for hundreds of feet to all sides and splintering into pieces from the force of the impact. Many of the raft's passengers landed atop the suddenly immobile object, perishing instantly from the long, screaming fall.

The Princess of Moonshae careened to the side, once again driven by the wind, which had freshened dramatically at the same time as the cyclones had appeared. Now Knaff the Elder guided them away from the nearest waterspout, steering as far from it as possible while still bearing west.

Within moments, white water surrounded them. Needles of spray lashed skin and stung eyes, while the roaring of angry water rose to a thunderous crescendo. Knaff, high on the helmsman's stand, tried to see what lay in their path, but he, too, was blinded by the torrent.

They might have reached the end of the world then, for with sudden abruptness the Princess of Moonshae plunged over the lip of an unseen drop, plummeting downward at breakneck speed.

'A Manta-destroyed!' Fury drove Coss-Axell-Sinioth to new heights of violence. His squid form lashed about in the depths of the Trackless Sea, the great tentacles crushing any scrags and sahuagin unfortunate enough to be caught by the stunning blows.

'But so are the humans!' hissed Krell-Bane, trembling before the avatar's rage. 'They must certainly be dead!' The giant sea troll, master of his race and ruling monarch of the Coral Kingdom, unwisely spat his own anger back at the giant squid. 'They sailed full into the Cyclones of Evermeet, and it's common knowledge that no air- breather can survive that tempest!'

'Can you bring me their bodies?' demanded the giant squid.

Now the sea monarch trembled before the wrath of his master. Still, the scrag king was forced to shake his head in negative response.

'Where is the other Manta?' inquired the avatar, his tone dropping to a deep rumble of menace-like an undersea earthquake, thought Krell-Bane, distant but promising the imminent arrival of a crushing wave of pressure.

'It patrols outside the Cyclone belt, awaiting the humans,' explained the scrag, hoping the news would be well received. 'If the ship should somehow escape-and I assure your Excellency that that is virtually impossible- then-'

'I thought you told me that it was impossible,' the great squid shape reminded the scrag.

'Yes. It is-for all practical purposes, of course. There's no way-'

'Enough!' snapped Coss-Axell-Sinioth, finally growing tired of his minion's groveling. 'Send all the troops we can muster to form a line at the outer edge of the cyclone belt. If they emerge, they are to be tracked and observed-not attacked until I give the word. Is that understood?'

The sea beast bowed and nodded cravenly.

'Then begone!' commanded the great squid. 'Return to me when you have news!'

The sea king darted away, quickly vanishing into the emerald depths. Coss-Axell-Sinioth watched him go, growling deep in his black heart. He itched for vengeance, but had no ready target for his hatred-nothing nearby, at any rate.

His thoughts drifted to the south, to the bright coral castles in the ocean shallows of Kyrasti and the air-filled prisons formed therein. Sinioth summoned the king of the sahuagin, who had waited safely out of the avatar's range. The fishman was considerably relieved that it was the scrag who bore the onus of the attack's failure.

'Come, my faithful one,' ordered the giant squid, and the hulking sahuagin, the largest living member of his race, obeyed. 'It is time for you to return to the grotto. There you must tend to the prisoner.'

12

The Warder of Evermeet

White water surged across the gunwales and showered from the sky in a seemingly endless stream. The dizzying plunge proved brief, but the sleek ship still raced blindly down a crashing wave. The Princess of Moonshae sagged in the water, loaded with the increasing weight of her own liquid ballast. All around, like a forest of massive columns, the pillars of water spewed upward, throwing seawater into the air with volcanic force.

'Bail! Bail for your lives!' cried Brandon, though nearly everyone aboard the ship was already doing just that.

The only exceptions were the Prince of Gnarhelm himself, who scanned the heaving water between the cyclones, looking for the safest passage, and Knaff the Elder, who clung to the rudder with a strength that belied his age. He may as well have been a part of the longship, feet nailed in place and wooden arms locked around the shaft with bands of steel sinew.

The High Queen lay still on a makeshift litter near the transom, her arms calmly crossed on her chest, as if she took no notice of the maelstrom around them. Her cheeks were pale and hollow, her breathing slow and deep.

'Starboard!' snarled the captain, and Knaff leaned on the rudder. The Princess of Moonshae scored a clean arc around the base of one of the monstrous spouts, racing like a diving bird, the force of the turn rocking the vessel far to the side.

'Now port-hard, man!' Brandon leaned to the left, as if his own weight would help the longship obey his command. Again Knaff anticipated the order, pressing hard in the opposite direction and hauling the vessel through the reverse of her previous turn.

They advanced with reckless speed, surrounded by vast whirlpools, water that spumed and swirled with the unleashed energy of the mighty sea. The waterspouts in the distance seemed as inanimate as stone-faced mountains or landscapes. Nearby, however, the cyclones seethed and sprayed like living, flowing things.

Frantic sailors seized every bucket and cup, everything that could conceivably be used to scoop water. Arms churning, the crew bailed like madmen and madwomen. The water level in the ship remained just barely constant, as the Princess of Moonshae glided around the cyclones with lumbering grace.

Abruptly the longship hit a great wave, a swell that rose as a. monstrous barrier in their path. Wind filled the sail, pressing forward and up, but the sleek vessel's momentum inevitably slowed. Brand clenched his teeth, looking at the crest that foamed and frothed above the figurehead. Then the Princess of Moonshae heeled away from the height, and for a sickening, drawn-out moment, the ship slid sideways on her keel, slipping down the wave and teetering, on the verge of capsizing. Only Knaff's skilled use of the rudder-Brandon didn't even try to command him at this perilous juncture-and the longship's superb construction and wide beam saved them from total disaster.

The helmsman guided the ship through a mad plunge down the flowing slope, through a dip between four pillars, and up a lower slope that blocked their path to the north. The vessel's speed carried them over this ridge, and for a moment, she perched on the brink of two swells.

Gasping from the strain of bailing, Alicia paused for a moment and looked ahead, awestruck.

The foaming pillars extended as far as she could see in all directions, intermixed by perilous whirlpools, all of it angry seawater, eager to chew up the longship and spit forth pieces of driftwood.

The only benefit-and it could not be overlooked-was that all sign of the pursuing rafts had been lost. Indeed, the crew took some heart from the fact that they had witnessed one of them destroyed. But now rows of pillars extended to the north and south for a dozen miles. The view to east and west was more restricted-columns of water stood directly before them in many places, and a second row of pillars blocked the view through the gaps.

Still, there seemed to be a rhythm to the churning mess between the spouts. The water rose into a whitewater crest, almost like a ridge of land, where each pair of pillars came relatively close together-as a rule, the narrower the gap, the higher the swell.

Conversely, the areas centered between three or four pillars tended to dip, with water flowing down into these shallow bowls from all sides. Knaff displayed breathtaking skill in guiding the Princess of Moonshae down these slopes, while Brandon studied the two or three gaps leading out of the bowl.