Perhaps, to be on the safe side, it would also be necessary to kill the prisoner.
16
Deirdre spent her days in Caer Callidyrr idly, when she did not immerse herself in the studying that seemed to expand the horizons of her knowledge on a daily basis. The affairs of the kingdom required little of her attention, and her irritable reaction to any interruption ensured that the servants and advisers sought to solve any problems themselves rather than risk the wrath of the young princess.
Many times during these days she sat before her mirror, scanning the wastes of the Trackless Sea without success. She did not believe that her mother or sister were dead. Deirdre was certain that, if this were the case, she would know beyond doubt. Still, their disappearance frustrated and concerned her. She wondered if they had established some means to screen the
Then, in the sudden revelation of a summer's dawn, she saw them again, coursing south by east now. The meaning of the course was clear to Deirdre: They had reached Evermeet and now proceeded with the next step of their mission.
Her first reaction to the discovery of her mother's party was an upswelling of relief. She knew now that the longship had no defenses against her scrying, although Evermeet did. Nevertheless, now she would be able to follow the continuation of the mission in her glass. She felt a growing measure of excitement as the
Casting forward, using the mirror once again to press below the surface, she looked for some sign, some clue of the Coral Kingdom's existence. She could find nothing, but she didn't believe this was because of any such arcane barrier as screened Evermeet. Instead, she suspected that it was simply because she didn't know where her target lay, nor was she linked there by a bond such as drew her to her sister and mother.
Yet if her search for the undersea realm failed, her reconnaissance provided her with another bit of information that hit the young princess with a bolt of anger and excitement. There in the ocean depths, she encountered a presence … a thing that was full of menace, and also familiarity. She searched carefully, sensing its nearness.
She found that essence in the body of a giant squid, but she knew that the flesh was merely a disguise. Immediately she felt the soul of the one she had known as Malawar.
She had found him again! Deirdre met the news with dark determination, resolving that this time the avatar of her enemy would not escape.
Tristan killed the sea troll for the tenth time, though leaden weights seemed to tug at his arm. The dagger lost more of its edge with each blow, and finally fatigue began to drag him toward the floor. How long could he endure, holding off sleep in order to maintain his grim vigil?
He reflected on the bitter confines of the submarine lair. Not only did it entrap him, but it limited his air. The only way to permanently kill a troll, as far as Tristan knew, was to burn it. Yet here, even if he had been able somehow to start the creature ablaze, the smoke would probably choke him. A grim joke for the troll, he thought without humor, if the creature reached from beyond death to claim the life of the one who had slain it.
Where was Marqillor? Would he return? Tristan had no idea how much time had passed since the merman had disappeared so abruptly. If the human had been abandoned, he knew his life would last only until he fell asleep, for then the troll would regenerate uninterrupted, rendering the fate of his sleeping captor inevitable.
Splashing water, the first clue that he had dozed, startled Tristan awake, and he sprang to his feet clutching the dagger.
'Hold, friend!' declared Marqillor, curling his tail beneath him at the edge of the pool. The merman raised himself to the height of a kneeling human as he spoke.
'Where were you?' demanded the king, embarrassed at his lack of alertness.
Abruptly more water splashed upward, and again, and each time the pool disgorged another merman until more than a dozen had gathered around Marqillor, sitting at the edge of the pool with their long tails trailing into the brine. The aquatic creatures examined the sea troll-which Tristan hastily dispatched again-and regarded the human with expressions of clear respect.
'I went to pay a call on some friends,' Marqillor announced. 'They wanted to meet you.'
'Can we get out of here?' inquired Tristan, knowing it would take a stunning bit of sorcery to transport him to the surface in any state approaching alive.
'I don't know. The surface is far away, and if you swam the distance quickly, the rapid change in pressure would surely prove fatal.'
'What can we-
'We can go to the palace of Kyrasti,' explained Marqillor. 'That's the great dome where Krell-Bane and Sythissal hold court. It's the very heart of the Coral Kingdom. More significantly, a portion of the throne room is filled with air. You will be able to survive there.'
'Sythissal.' The name was familiar to Tristan. The sahuagin king had been his enemy for more than twenty years. 'But who's Krell-Bane?'
'The king of the sea trolls, and a very evil monarch he is. Krell-Bane is the most hated enemy of the merfolk, and we have been given a marvelous chance to strike him!'
'Why is it so marvelous?' Tristan wondered.
'Because you freed me,' explained the merman prince. 'The perimeter of the scrag king's palace is well patrolled by sharks as well as by his troops. The interior of the castle, secure as he imagines it to be, is not nearly so well protected.'
'How far is it?'
'Several miles,' admitted Marqillor, placing a hand on Tristan's arm as the human's face fell.
'I can never swim that far,' Tristan acknowledged with a shrug. To come so close to escaping, and now to be thwarted by such a trivial distance!
'There might be a way,' offered Marqillor, studying Tristan's face. 'It is not without risk, and it requires great courage on your part, but it may be possible for you to make it.'
'I'm ready to try anything,' said Tristan-and he meant it.
'Dead ahead, Brandon,' Robyn quietly announced to the Prince of Gnarhelm. The northman nodded. For five days, he had followed no compass but the intuition of the Great Druid, yet he didn't begin to doubt the acuity of her direction.
The wind had favored them for the first two days but then faded to a lackluster breeze. They made headway, but their listless wake sliced placid waters, a far cry from the white slash trailing the
'Look-in the water!' announced Brigit, her voice terse and commanding.
The others saw them, too-sharks, in a great school gathered around the longship. Schools of the ugly fish, triangular fins slicing the surface of the water in menacing patterns, approached from fore and aft until dozens of the predators surrounded them, spread in a wide escort around the longship. The marine predators had no difficulty matching the
One of the longbowmen took aim at a huge gray shark as it approached the hull. His arrow pierced the sleek body, immediately coloring the surrounding water pale red. Moments later, the ugly fish closed on their stricken fellow, tearing the body apart in a thrashing orgy of killing.
'Look! Here come more of them!' announced Keane as more fins appeared, slicing through the water from the north. Additional bowmen raised arrows and took aim.
'Don't shoot,' the queen suggested. 'The blood will only draw replacements-faster, I'm sure, than we can kill them off.'
