The Dragon Isles

Chapter Sixteen

Karista Meinor screamed and threw her arms up over her head. Small pieces of coral rained down from the ceiling and bounced off her, scraping her exposed skin. Tiny streamers of blood from her scratches clouded the water.

Mik pulled Trip out of the way of a large coral boulder as it crashed from the ceiling. The floor split into pieces under the rock’s weight. Because they were all swimming, no one fell through the hole. However, as the floor caved in, it undermined the corridor’s riblike wall supports.

The walls gave way and more of the roof collapsed. The holes opened the tunnel to the battle outside, and Tempest’s minions streamed through.

A swarm of predatory fish quickly surrounded the beleaguered fugitives. Mik and the others drew their weapons and slashed at the attacking school. Great clouds of blood soon filled the corridors, attracting even more evil fish.

“Keep going! Keep going!” Ula called, trying to lead the rest down the crumbling tunnel and away from the breaches.

Shimmer followed her, watching the sea elf s back. Small pieces of coral crashed into his armor, but he didn’t seem to notice.

A razorfish got past Mik’s guard and tore a small gash in Karista’s arm. The aristocrat screamed and swung wildly with her borrowed sword. Flailing in the murky water, she sliced across the top of Trip’s knee.

The kender yelped, and the magical seaweed nearly popped out of his mouth.

“Give me that!” Mik said, snatching the sword out of Karista’s grasp with his left hand. With the cutlass in his right hand, he continued to fend off a big Turbidus leech. “Stay calm!”

“But I’m bleeding!” Karista blurted.

“Not badly,” Mik replied, the magic of his necklace projecting his voice clearly. “Stay calm. You okay Trip?”

“Fine…” Trip gasped, nodding. He quickly rolled his pants leg into a makeshift bandage to cover the wound.

The delicious blood proved too much for Mog’s fishy escorts. They left their master’s side and swarmed ahead. Despite the bloodlust building within him, Mog remained hidden.

Ula cursed, then turned to fend off the new threat. She swam back quickly to the rear of the group, dodging a deadly hail of crumbling coral as she went. “Shimmer, this tunnel is going to collapse before we can get through it,” she called. “Can you buy us some time?”

Shimanloreth nodded and, with two quick strokes, moved through the falling boulders to the back of the group. He picked up a huge section of bracing and threw it into the midst of their attackers. Many died, and many others fell back.

Shimmer drew his jagged-edged bronze sword and swung it in wide circles. More attacking fish died in droves, turning the water black with their blood.

Mog crept closer, staying carefully hidden from the humans and their allies.

The beleaguered fugitives retreated. The sharks and their kith swarmed toward them. The tunnel’s final collapse, though, seemed imminent. Columns toppled like ninepins, and coral blocks big enough to crush the whole group crashed down from above.

“Keep swimming,” Shimmer said grimly. “I can hold the rear.”

Mik nodded and led the rest down the corridor. Ula, amazingly quick and agile, helped pull the slower Trip and Karista along. Even so, they barely kept ahead of the ever widening cracks in the walls.

“The tunnel burrows into the reef up ahead,” Shimmer called, bringing up the rear. As he spoke, though, a huge slab broke off the ceiling directly above them.

Shimmer surged forward to meet the falling coral. He grew as he swam, his body expanding like an angry pufferfish. His armor twisted and changed. Huge spikes sprouted from his shoulders, and thick, scaly plates covered his arms and legs.

In moments, the knight filled nearly the whole corridor. He pressed his huge back against the ceiling to keep it from collapsing.

“Move!” he growled, his voice booming like thunder through the swirling currents.

Wide-eyed, Mik, Trip, and the rest darted into the safety of the coral hillside beyond, sparing only a few worried glances back for their savior.

Shimmer screamed in pain and, with one final surge, leaped from the collapsing passageway and into the tunnel beyond. He shrank to human size once more as he darted through the falling debris. Huge blocks crashed down on the pursuing fish, killing most of the evil throng. In moments, rubble blocked the corridor behind the fugitives.

Mik quickly slew the few snakelike Turbidus leeches that had escaped the devastation. “Thanks, Shimmer,” he said, panting and feeling bone-weary.

“Yes, thanks,” Ula said. “We’d all be fish paste if it wasn’t for you.”

Shimmer nodded back. He brushed the silt from his armor and gingerly rubbed his left shoulder.

“That was the most amazing thing ever!” spouted Trip. He was out of breath and looked slightly blue.

“We should keep moving,” Mik said. “That magical seaweed can’t last forever.”

Karista, silt-covered, cut, and bruised, vigorously nodded her agreement.

With pursuit foiled, and the tunnel in no danger of further collapse, they moved quickly into the heart of the huge reef.

No one noticed the green, eel-like shape that wound its way out of the crevasses in the crumbled slabs blocking the corridor. The creature swam forward a short distance and then shuddered and resumed its true shape.

Mog peered into the semi-darkness after the fugitives. There were too many to fight-especially with this strange and powerful bronze knight among their number. He now understood his mistress’ burning interest in the group. Taking care not to be seen, the dragonspawn swam down the tunnel after his prey.

The passageway wound deep into the reef before turning toward the surface once more. The fugitives passed numerous side corridors, always choosing the one that ascended most steeply. Small, bioluminescent creatures inhabiting nooks in the coral walls lit their course, giving the tunnels a pale green glow.

Shimmer, battered and weary looking, led the way. He glanced back now and again to make sure the rest were keeping up. They moved continuously, taking little time for rest. Though it seemed unlikely that either Lakuda’s people or the dragon would he able to catch them, no one wanted to take any chances.

During one of their brief stops, Mik took the time to properly bandage Trip’s leg wound. The kender didn’t complain, but his friends noticed that he wasn’t swimming with his usual verve. The captain treated Karista’s cuts and scrapes as well.

All went well until they came to a three-way branch in the corridor. Shimmer closed his orangish eyes a moment and concentrated before declaring that he detected no preferable route among the three.

“Perhaps they all lead to the surface,” Mik said hopefully.

“These corridors are part of the Maze,” Shimmer replied, his deep voice clear, even through the water. “They’re designed to confuse people and keep them from passing beyond the Veil. Chances are that two of these corridors lead to deadly traps.”

Karista cursed and leaned against the corridor’s rough coral wall. She looked pale and weary.

“Trip,” Mik said, “Give Karista some of that extra seaweed I gave hack to you.”

“Yes,” Karista said. “The magic is fading.”

Trip nodded and took the small wad out of his pocket. He divided it and gave the larger portion to Lady Meinor.

Mik took a deep breath and leaned hack. He felt tired, and slightly dizzy. A warm, almost burning sensation had sprung up in his gut. He slumped to his knees and felt something dig into his thigh.

He fished the diamond artifact out of his belt pocket and held it up. The golden loops felt very warm, and the black gem shone with a dim luminescence.

“A diamond key!” Shimmer said, his eyes shining with fascination. “Where did you get it?”

“Diving on an old wreck,” Mik replied. “Ula said it would lead us to the isles. Could it still he working?”

“Yes!” Ula and Shimanloreth said at the same time.

“Hold it up before the passages, Mik,” Ula said.

The captain nodded and got to his feet, holding the diamond in his outstretched hand. As he slowly approached each of the three corridors, the artifact sparked slightly toward the one on their left. Mik smiled.

Trip and Karista looked at each other in disbelief.

“The crystal is attuned to the barrier at the end of the maze,” Ula explained.

“It’s leading us toward the Dragon Isles,” Mik added. “Just as it was aboard the ship.”

“This way,” Ula said, starting up the chosen corridor.

The passage sloped gradually upward and, soon, the way ahead grew brighter.

“Is that moonlight?” Trip asked.

“Not moonlight,” Shimmer replied soberly. “The Veil.”

“Once we’re beyond the Veil,” Ula said, “we’ll be out of the sea dragon’s reach. It’ll be trickier for Lakuda to catch us as well.”

“If you make it through,” added Shimmer.

“We?” asked Trip. “Aren’t you coming?”

“The Veil is designed to keep unwanted visitors out,” Shimmer replied, ignoring his question. “If you are not born of this place, if you are not meant to be here, if you do not have the secret of passage, then you will go no further.”

In Mik’s mind, the image formed of an immense blue-white diamond waiting somewhere beyond the Veil. He couldn’t believe that he’d come so far, only to fail. Somehow, they would pass the Veil.

As they swam cautiously over a rise in the tunnel, the barrier appeared before them. The Veil glittered like diamonds in the moonlight-a whirling phantasm of pale colors. The enchantment reached from the tunnel’s floor to the ceiling. The magic seeped down through the reef into the earth below and high into the heavens above. The Veil permeated the isles, insulating it from the world outside.

Being so close to the barrier made the fugitives’ skin tingle and the hair on the backs of their necks stand up. Karista swayed woozily as though she might faint. Mik and Trip took her arms and guided her forward.

“Sleek!” Trip gasped.

Even Ula and Shimmer seemed affected as they drew near the enchantment. The sea elf blinked, the glow of the Veil reflecting off her green eyes. The bronze knight appeared to shrink slightly as he approached the barrier.

Mik rubbed his head, trying to remember where he was going or why he’d come to this place. He looked at Trip, wide-eyed and fascinated, then at Karista, more drowsy and confused-looking than either of them.

He felt a burning sensation in his palm and realized that he was still holding the artifact. Opening his fingers, he saw the black diamond glittering brightly within. Its radiance almost matched that of the Veil now.

The diamond’s light grew in his mind. He felt his head clear. His resolve to go forward grew firm once more.

“The artifact!” he gasped. “It fights the barrier’s effects!” He held the black diamond out before his friends’ befuddled faces.

The light of the diamond gleamed in Trip and Karista’s staring eyes. The blue-white light danced across their blank faces. The two light forms whirled around each other, finally merging to become pure white brilliance. The Veil’s enchantment slipped from the faces of the kender and the aristocrat. They rubbed their heads as though awaking from a deep sleep.

“Beautiful,” Karista said.

Trip looked puzzled. “Didn’t see it from die ship,” he said, then paused to gasp for breath.

“The Veil is only visible when you’re very close,” Ula replied. “And sometimes, not even then.” Mik noticed she kept her eyes averted as she approached the glistening shield.

Shimmer held out one armored palm to the others. “Link hands,” he said. “I maybe able to lead you through.”

Ula took his hand, and Trip took hers. Mik grasped the kender’s palm, and Meinor laced her fingers around Mik’s hand.

Shimanloreth stepped into the Veil. As he did, a jolt shot through the bodies of the entire group. As the magic surrounded him, the bronze knight flickered and changed-first large, then small, scaly, then spiky. For a moment, he barely looked human, then he appeared as a perfect, glittering knight. He passed through and vanished from the sight of the rest.

Ula followed quickly behind, fighting the barrier’s distorting effects. She looked oddly fish-like, before vanishing as she passed through. Trip grew tall and thin, laurels decorating his hair-like a young god returned to Krynn. He pushed beyond the swirling lights and disappeared.

Mik felt the magic assaulting him as he entered. Unseen winds pulled at his hair, and fire burned in his breast. His skin tingled as though he had touched an electric ray. He wondered if his appearance had changed; wondered what he looked like to the others. The kender’s strong grip kept pulling him through the barrier. Then something went wrong.

A jolt shot up Mik’s arm and he stopped, frozen, in the middle of the Veil. The magic howled around him. Looking back, he saw Karista, wide-eyed and afraid. A huge ball of white fire engulfed their clasped hands.

Mik felt his trapped hand, hot and tingling, but it seemed a very long distance away. In his mind, he heard Karista screaming-though no sound escaped her lips. Her voice sounded shrill and inhuman.

Summoning all his strength, he pushed forward one final time, dragging Karista Meinor with him.

The barrier gave way. Karista surged through the magical eddy, crashing hard into Mik, and they both tumbled out of the Veil on the far side.

They floated there a moment, dazed and exhausted. Karista gasped for breath.

“What happened?” Shimanloreth snapped. “What did you do?”

Behind them, the Veil wavered and rippled, like the surface of a glassy pond into which a large stone has been dropped. In the center of the ripples, the magic seemed to have vanished altogether-though it was slowly reforming at the edges.

“I used the diamond to push my way through,” Mik panted. He opened his fingers, revealing the dark form of the diamond artifact.

Shimmer glowered. “None of you were meant to be here,” he said.

“We… got through,” Trip burbled cheerfully.

Mik took a deep breath of enchanted air and felt another scale fall from his necklace. “Trip’s right…” he said. “The fact that we’re here… means we’re meant to be.”

The bronze knight crossed his arms over his broad chest, and his eyes narrowed. “Perhaps.”

“Lady Meinor is having trouble breathing,” Ula said, a touch of concern in her voice.

“Me, too!” blurted Trip.

“The seaweed magic’s fading,” Mik said.

“The surface can’t be far,” Ula replied.

“Hurry!” Karista gasped.

They turned and swam quickly upward, Ula, Mik, and Shimmer helping Trip and Karista Meinor.

Mog’s brain ached. He’d followed the fugitives through the tunnels for what seemed like hours. Several times, he became confused and almost lost sight of them before his keen nose set him straight again.

The water around him surged with unexpected currents. The sides of the passages wavered. Once he found himself turned completely around and realized his mistake only just in time to avoid losing his prey.

The problem grew steadily worse as he went. The tides roared in his ears, tiny glittering fish danced before his eyes, and his skin crawled with even more worms than usual. The Turbidus leech attached to his spine-his connection to Tempest-burned like a molten sword.

He almost turned back, but the thought of the sea dragon’s wrath spurred him on. Ahead, he dimly saw the shapes of his quarry. They had stopped at some kind of glowing barrier. Mog tried to swim closer but found he couldn’t. He bumped into one of the coral walls and clung there, dizzy and sick to his stomach.

A jolt shot through the water. Mog bit his tongue to keep from screaming. He looked up just as Karista Meinor passed through the Veil.

His mind suddenly cleared, and the dragonspawn swam cautiously forward as his prey disappeared into the distance. Ahead, the Veil wavered and rippled around a rapidly contracting hole in its enchantment.

Mog shot forward, swimming as quickly as he knew how. He thrust his scaly body toward the opening, but it shrank even as he did so.

His head slammed into the shimmering barrier. Fire shot down his spine, and his limbs twitched uncontrollably. His mouth felt as though it were full of sea urchins. Every scale on his body throbbed; his red eyes ached as though he’d rubbed them with sand.

He blinked back the pain and saw the Veil closing before him.

Summoning every iota of energy in his scaly flesh, he transformed into a sea snake and slithered through the hole just as it snapped shut.

Exhausted, he became Mog once more and settled into the sand at the bottom of the tunnel beyond the enchanted barrier.

His head felt clearer now, though his body ached as though a reef had fallen on top of him. The Turbidus leech burrowed into his mind howled with pain and indignation. It called to its dark mistress. Vaguely, like an echo in a typhoon, Mog heard Tempest respond.

For once, he ignored her and simply passed out.

Pure blue-white illumination flooded the tunnel ahead of them.

“Moonlight!” Trip bubbled. “For sure!”

The light rekindled the hopes of the weary fugitives, and they swam quickly toward it. An opening in the coral, distant and wavering, beckoned before them.

The tunnel leveled out and they walked up, out of the brine, onto a sandy-floored passageway.

Karista knelt at the water’s edge and spat the seaweed from her mouth. She sputtered and gasped for breath. “At last!” she said. “Thank the lost gods we made it!”

Trip pulled the magical seaweed out of his mouth and stuffed it into one of the pockets of his snake skin vest. “Hope I won’t need that again anytime soon,” he said.

“C’mon,” Mik said, leaning wearily against one wall of the tunnel. “It’s not much farther.” He glanced from his shipmates toward the sea elf and the knight.

Shimanloreth stood solidly on his bronze legs at the front of the group, waiting for the others to catch up. Ula leaned on her borrowed spear, taking a moment to catch her wind. Mik noticed that a circle of dolphins tattooed on her smooth, blue shoulder glittered slightly in the moonlight.

“Where do we go from here?” he silently wondered. An image of the huge blue-white diamond appeared in his mind, but he pushed it aside.

He and Trip helped Karista to her feet, and the three of them staggered after the sea dwellers and toward the light. It took them only a few moments to walk up, out of the tunnel and into the fresh air once more.

They emerged on a tiny coral atoll, its surface just tall enough to avoid submerging during high tide. They came out of the tunnel facing west, toward the way they’d come. Back, beyond the Veil, the ocean boiled with the sea dragon’s fury. Stormclouds clashed overhead, and lightning flashed down into the breakers with frightening regularity. The crash of thunder and the roar of the winds seemed oddly distant-unreal-as though the storm were part of another world.

Somewhere below those waves, the people of Reeftown were still fighting and dying. Mik felt glad that he and his friends were no longer a part of that terrible struggle. He turned to the east, away from the storm, and his heart filled with wonder.

Overhead, the moon shone brightly amid a field of twinkling stars. A mantle of purple and deep blue draped the sky, fading to violet and pink near the eastern horizon. The sun had not risen yet, but already its glow painted the skyline with the colors of the coming day.

The ocean lay still and quiet, reflecting the moon and the stars in its mirror-like, azure surface.

Dotting the placid waters, like emeralds on an opal sea, lay the Dragon Isles.