Realms of the Deep

MESSENGER TO SEROS

10 Tarsakh, the Year of the Gauntlet

Shafts of golden sunlight drove down through the blue-green water, sparkling and flickering. Fish darted in and out, between and through them, their scales gleaming, then turning dark. Along the clean, sandy bottom, a manta glided, stirring a soft cloud of silt in its wake. Above a red and yellow coral bed, a grouper lazed in the afternoon sun, while smaller fish hovered in its shade.

The sea currents bent and changed, and the grouper started from its place and ponderously swam around the coral. A large school of glistening silverfins swayed and parted like a curtain as the merman darted through, his long, blue hair streaming behind him, his tail flicking back and forth, propelling him on. Streams of tiny bubbles flowed back from his arms and upper body. He scythed through the water and was gone. After a few moments the grouper returned to its original position, and all was as it had been.

The merman darted on. In his mind, he could hear the commands of Narros as clearly as they'd reached his ears.

"You must travel to Seres," the shaman told him. "Warn our people there of the peril of the sahuagin invasion. Tell them of the disasters that have befallen us in Waterdeep. Your message must reach them-and in a timely fashion. Otherelse they may come here only to find a sea of the dead."

"But, Narros, how can I travel there in time to do any good? Serds is hundreds of miles inland, and we are sundered from our kindred there. Even if I reached there in time, and even if they were willing to listen to me, would they really send aid?"

They must," the shaman said grimly. "This is no mere skirmish with the sea devils this tune. This time it is an age-old prophecy that rises from the depths of the sea against us. If it triumphs, all Faerun is in peril."

Narros took Thraxos's arm and guided him to the edge of the chamber. Beyond the door, seaweed eddied and swirled with the currents.

"It has been long rumored among our people that to the south of Waterdeep, in the depths of the cliffs that line the shores, there may be found passages that join in some waterway leading beneath the land. Perhaps in one of those passages you may find a dimensional gate to our brethren in the Sea of Fallen Stars. You must do the best you can. We are depending on you."

Thraxos's mouth twisted. Depending. Thraxos was nothing if not dependable. Not heroic. Not dashing. Not brilliant. Just… dependable.

And now, to be sent by Narros on this hopeless mission…

After traveling south from Waterdeep, Thraxos had scoured the coastal cliffs for two days. For two solid days he had swum back and forth, probing caverns, exploring crannies, hoping each would be the one to lead him to the underwater way to Seros.

All had proved false.

He had begun to think that the old legends were but garbled tales of a far-off past in which perhaps such a passage had existed, only to be destroyed in some gargantuan upheaval that tossed about sea and land alike.

Now the rocks beneath the sea's edge loomed up before him again, black and forbidding. They reared themselves into a great cliff, fifty feet high. About halfway up was a black spot.

Another cave.

With a sigh, Thraxos shot upward. The cave door was roughly ten feet wide, worn smooth by the passage of the tides. Its sides were cloaked in mossy growth that wavered in the pale light that shone about the entrance from the sunlight streaming from above. Thraxos entered, his body adjusting to the sudden chill of the waters around him. The passage was pitch black, and Thraxos felt his way cautiously along its sides, which were rough and irregular. Once or twice he felt an empty space on one side or another, as if the main passage had intersected with smaller ways, but he continued to follow the large tunnel.

The tunnel bent sharply to the right, and Thraxos, bending with it, encountered a cold surface in front of him. Rock. Another dead end.

He almost wept with anger and despair. In a rage, he slammed his hand against the side of the passage.

Something gave way under the blow. The blocking wall, on which he had rested one hand, fell back, and the water around him leaped forward into the narrow tunnel beyond. Thraxos had barely time to put his hands above his head and make himself as thin as possible before the current swept him into the opening.

The water propelled him along the tunnel with increasing speed. He could feel the rush of movement all around him, yet he was helpless to control his progress. Instinctively he knew that the way had widened somewhat. The water carrying him grew faster and rougher, and several times he was banged against the walls of the passage. He smelled blood in the water and knew it was his own. Once or twice his head struck against the walls of the passage. He felt as if he had lost consciousness, but he could not be sure. When he opened his eyes, everything was exactly the same as it had been: the same hurtling motion, the same blur of water and walls around him.

Faster and faster. Now he had no conception of the speed at which he was traveling. His body felt as if it were being stretched before and behind, as if he were being pulled to an infinite thinness that could only end with him shattering into a myriad of pieces.

From ahead of him came a dim light that grew stronger. Suddenly the rocky walls fell away, and space and light surrounded him.

He looked behind him. A shaft in the dark wall was slowly closing by some unseen mechanism. In a moment the edges ground together with a resounding boom, and the rocky wall looked as impervious as the barrier he'd encountered on the other side of the passage.

How far have I come, he wondered, and where in all Faerun am I?

As far as a preliminary look could tell him, he was in a shallow lake of some sort. Twenty or thirty feet above, the surface was flooded with light, almost blinding to him after the darkness of the passageway. He rose toward it, and hi a moment his head burst above the water.

Nearby was the shore against which soft waves were lapping, while dark firs ringed the water. Their tops whispered softly together and made a kind of accompaniment to the sound of weeping.

Thraxos looked about. Some ten yards beyond the water's edge was an overturned caravan. Smoke smoldered from the ashes of a nearby campfire, while various bags and bundles were scattered roughly about the ground. They had been torn open and the contents plundered-by human robbers, Thraxos suspected. In his travels along the shores of the Sword Coast he'd seen enough to realize the extent of human barbarity practiced against other humans. But where was the crying coming from?

A young girl, scarcely more than eight or nine, her golden hair twisted around a tear-stained face, sat next to two of the bundles. They were bigger and more compact than the others, and it took Thraxos a moment to realize they weren't bundles after all but bodies. From where he floated on the water's surface, he could see the rivulets of red that ran along the stony ground from beneath them and found then- meandering way to the waters of the lake.

Thraxos had little interest in the details of the affair, but he urgently needed to know where his unexpected journey had brought him.

"Hey," he called softly.

The crying did not cease, so he tried again. "Hey, there!"

Now the girl lifted her face from her hands and looked about wildly, fear suffusing her face. Thraxos flipped his tail and glided up against the rocks that ringed the lake.

"Girl… where am I?"

She stared at him, her eyes wide, then a fresh storm of sorrow seized her. She threw herself on the mossy ground, kicking her heels, screaming and wailing.

"Stop it!" Thraxos yelled. "Stop it at once, do you hear?"

His voice, which contained every ounce of force he could put into it, seemed to shock her back to some semblance of calm. She sat up and rubbed her eyes with grubby fists.

"Where am I?" Thraxos asked again.

"Mummy and Daddy are…" Her voice trailed off, and she looked as if she might burst into tears again.

Thraxos's scales itched with impatience, but he tried to keep his voice even. "Yes. I'm sorry. Were you attacked?"

She bobbed her head. "Robbers. Mummy told me to hide under the bed in the wagon. I did, and I heard Daddy yelling. Then Mummy screamed, and then the robbers were laughing, and then the wagon fell over and I was under the bed. I almost couldn't breathe. I don't remember anything else for a while. Then I crawled out, and Mummy and Daddy…" She began sobbing again, punctuated by hiccups.

Some part of Thraxos's mind noted that bein knocked unconscious had probably saved the girl's lif The robbers had evidently been in too much of a hun to search the caravan thoroughly. They'd ransacke what they could easily find and fled, leaving the bodic of their victims for whatever scavengers prowled th; land.

The girl had finished her crying and was now lool ing at him more calmly. "Are you a ghost?"

"What?"

"Are you a ghost?" Her tone was matter of fac "Mummy told me this grove and this lake wer haunted. We wanted to get through here quickly, bi our horse went away and we had to wait before gettin a new one."

Thraxos realized that she had no idea of his tru nature. All she saw was the head and shoulders of man protruding above the water. He shook his hea‹ "No, child, I am no ghost. I do not even know where am. Can you tell me?"

This is the Frahalish Grove."

The name meant nothing to Thraxos. "How far ar we from Seros?"

She said nothing, but looked puzzled. Clearly th name meant nothing to her.

Thraxos remembered Narros calling the sea b some other name, the name the surface dwellers i Waterdeep had used. What was it?

The… Sea of… Falling… Fallen Stars. That's i How far from here?"

"A long way." She shook her tresses briskly. "A lonj long, long way. We were going to Cormyr. Daddy tol me we wouldn't get there for days and days an days."

Thraxos looked around him. The lake was really not much more than an extended pond. The far shore, rocky and looking very much like that against which he leaned, was not more than a mile away. He sighed inwardly and tried again.

"How far are we from the Sword Coast?"

She considered gravely. "Ever so far. My Uncle Aelias lives in Waterdeep, and we never see him because Daddy says it's too far away to travel."

Thraxos's heart sank. The passage he'd been through, though evidently not a gate in the precise meaning of the word, had deposited him at incredible speed in this lake in the middle of-nowhere. He was trapped here as surely as if he'd swum into a fisherman's net. The passage behind him was blocked. There might, of course, be an exit elsewhere in the lake, but the gods only knew where it would take him.

The girl was watching him with solemn eyes. "Why don't you come out of the water?" she asked abruptly.

Thraxos ignored the question, and she asked it again more loudly. He turned back to her with a sigh. "Because I cannot. I am a merman."

Her mouth fell open, and several high-pitched squeaks emerged before she got her voice.

"Really? I've never seen a merman. My Uncle Aelias says there are mermen who live near Waterdeep and who help protect it. My friend Andriana says that if you catch a merman by his tail he'll give you three wishes, but I don't think I believe that. I mean, if you caught a merman by the tail you'd have to swim faster than him, and no one can do that, because everyone knows that merfolk swim faster than anything, even than fishes, but I don't know about that because I had a pet fish once, its name was Berf-"

"Silence, child!" Thraxos roared. His head was splitting. The little girl stared at him in astonishment for a moment, then burst into tears again.

"Oh, for Tyre's sake!" Thraxos flipped his tail impatiently. "Child, I did not mean to be angry, but you must understand, I have an urgent message to be delivered to the ruler of our people in the Sea of Fallen Stars. The fate of all Faerun may easily depend upon it, but now I do not see how I am to accomplish this mission."

Bile rose in his throat. "They trusted me! They depended on me. I have let them down. That is what they will say of me! They will say Thraxos was given an important task, and he failed miserably. No one ever even found his body. He was lost somewhere in the distant waters of-'"

"Wait!"

The little girl had stopped crying and was looking at him again, her eyes large. "Why don't we take a mount?"

Thraxos shook his head. The pounding behind his eyes grew stronger. He plunged his head beneath the surface, drawing a deep breath of water before returning to the surface. "What do you mean, child? I have no mount, and even had I the fastest dolphin in existence, it could no more get out of this lake than I can. No, the matter is lost. I shall linger here, despairing, while songs are sung up and down the Sword Coast of my sad fate, and-"

The girl, whose eyes had been wandering about the lake during this peroration, suddenly interrupted. "Why don't you ride a horse?"

Thraxos stared at her, dumfounded by her stupidity. Then, in the voice he might use to address a simpleton, he said patiently, "I cannot ride a horse. I have told you, I am a merman. How would I mount? Besides, a horse would travel far too slowly. I must be in water every hour or so, or I will die. Breathing is difficult for me after even a few minutes. You see-"

The girl shook her head impatiently. "No, no. Not a regular horse-a flying horse. They travel much faster, and you could see lakes from the air. You could take a bath in them and feel ever so much better."

Thraxos snorted. "And where, pray tell, would I get a flying horse?"

The girl nodded solemnly. "Wait there a minute." She dashed over to the wreckage of the wagon, dived beneath a jutting spar of wood, and rummaged energetically.

Thraxos remained where he was, grumbling quietly to himself. An unnatural rustling in the leaves a hundred yards away startled him, and he wondered if the robbers might have come back.

The girl returned, something long and slender clutched in her chubby fist. "It's Daddy's magic rod," she said calmly. "He used it to make a horse when ours died."

Thraxos glanced at the wagon where the corpse of a slaughtered animal lay between the traces. The girl followed his gaze and shook her head. "Oh, no, not that one. We bought that one in town a long, long time ago. Last tenday, I think. But it wasn't a magical horse."

In spite of himself, Thraxos was impressed. "What happened to the magic horse?" he asked.

"It went away, but I can make another one."

"Was your other magical horse a pegasus?" He saw her brow wrinkle in puzzlement and amended hastily, "A flying horse?"

"No, but watch."

She took the rod between both hands and pointed the end toward a dear spot of grass nearby. Thraxos saw that the rod was smooth, wooden, and had some sort of metal wire binding both ends. The girl closed her eyes and bowed her head in concentration. After a moment, Thraxos fancied he saw the end of the rod begin to glow. In another moment he was sure of it.

With a startling suddenness a beam of white light shot from the end of the rod and spread across the grass. It brightened to an intense flash, and Thraxos blinked, spots swimming before his eyes.

When he blinked, the spots went away. In their place was an enormous hedgehog, standing on the grass with an expression of vague surprise. From its shoulders sprouted two slender wings. They resembled those of an emaciated bat and were obviously inadequate to bear the animal's considerable weight. The hedgehog stretched its snout over its shoulder and subjected its unusual appendages to a prolonged snuffle. Having exhausted whatever interest they held, the creature examined its surroundings, grunted cynically, and set off for the woods at a gentle, though earth-shaking trot.

Thraxos looked at the little girl in exasperation. "For goodness sakes, child, be careful. Objects like this usually have a limited number of charges. We cannot afford to waste any on foolish mistakes."

She stared back, her lower lip thrust out in a pout.

"Well, it's not my fault," she said. "I've never used it." She turned her back on him.

The merman put out a hand. "Never mind. Better give it to me. Perhaps I'll have better luck with it."

"No! It's mine! It belonged to my daddy." He could hear tears trembling at the edge of her voice.

Thraxos made a careful effort to keep his voice calm.

" Did your dadd-father tell you how many charges the rod contained?" — — .:

She thought a moment, then said, "Three. That was it. He said we could use it three more times."

Thraxos winced. "Very well, but you've already used one, so only two remain. Try again, and please try to get it right this time."

She nodded and held the rod out before her again. This time Thraxos turned his head away as the light emanating from the rod grew brighter. When he turned back to the patch of grass, a magnificent white horse stood on it, quietly champing at the meadow. Folded along its back were a pair of the finest wings the merman had ever seen, surpassing even those of the pegasi that occasionally dipped and swooped above the skyline of the City of Splendors.

The girl approached the animal without any trace of fear. It watched her with liquid eyes and bent its graceful neck toward her. She stroked it, patted its mane, and whispered softly in its ear. Then she looked at the merman.

"Well, come on."

He asked, amazed, "How do you know what to say to it?"

She looked puzzled for a moment, then replied, "Whoever summons the creature controls it. That's what my daddy said." Daddy was evidently an oracle whose words were unquestioned.

All the elation Thraxos had felt at seeing the magical appearance of this mount dissolved in an instant. He shook his locks despairingly. "How can I mount? How could I hold on for such a flight?"

She considered the question gravely, then went back to the rubbish around the wagon, dived into a pile, and came up with a length of rope. With fingers remark ably sure in one so young, she twisted it into a rougl halter, which she cast about the unresisting pegasus She led the animal next to the rocks on which Thraxoi rested his arms, and handed him the end of the rope.

"Catch hold of that and hang on."

Before the merman had time to reply, she slappec the animal's rump. It backed suddenly and Thraxos was drawn in an instant from the water and lay flop ping absurdly on the dry, hard ground.

The girl laughed, and Thraxos felt the blood rising to his cheeks. No merman feels more helpless than or dry land, and Thraxos was no exception.

"What are you doing?" he shouted irritably at the child. Raising himself on his arms, he began struggling painfully back toward the inviting, cool waters of the lake.

"No, no!" The girl caught him by the shoulder "Wait."

She looked at him critically, from his majestically muscled torso, to his long, brilliantly scaled tail. Turning back to the pegasus she busied herself with the rope, hiding what she was doing with her body.

Thraxos felt his lungs contract painfully. The sun scaled his tail, used to the cooling waters. He flicked il across the dry ground and marveled that humans and others could manage to exist on anything so unpleasant.

There!"

The girl stood back, and Thraxos could see she had fashioned a kind of rough harness that was suspended across the beast's side. He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as he asked, "What is that for?"

"For you, silly!" In obedience to the girl's command, the flying horse trotted over to Thraxos and knelt beside him. "Now," said the girl, "catch hold of that rope"-she touched a dangling line-"and Freyala will pull you up. Ill bind the harness around you so you won't slip, and well be off."

There were so many objections to this scheme that Thraxos had no time to voice them. The girl placed his fingers firmly around the rope. The pegasus-when had she named the damned thing, Thraxos wondered-rose, and Thraxos felt the lines of the harness gather around him, supporting him. The girl pulled another rope and the harness tightened around him.

"There," she said triumphantly. "Comfy?"

It was hardly the word Thraxos would have used. He had never been caught in a fisherman's net, but he imagined the sensation was similar.

The girl ignored his growls of discomfort. She walked over to the bodies of her parents and tenderly drew blankets over them. Then, without further ado, she picked up a lantern, opened it, and poured the oil over the corpses. She searched until she found flint and tinder, struck a spark, and stood back as the fire took hold. Watching the flames for a moment, she gave a keening cry in some language Thraxos did not understand. Then, resolutely turning her back on the pyre, she climbed nimbly up the side of the horse and grasped the improvised reins.

"Let's go," she said. Without further command the horse sprang into the air, spread its wings, and soared away.

Thraxos concluded very quickly that travel by air was at least as uncomfortable as he imagined travel by land must be. The wind whistled continually in his ears, making conversation all but impossible, and the rushing air dried out his scales and skin until they stung as if a thousand needles were being pressed into them. At the end of an hour, he could stand it no more. The girl, who had given him an occasional glance, understood and ordered the pegasus to swoop lower. She half rose hi her seat, looking over the beast's shoulder, then she pointed ahead and down.

There!"

The pegasus dived, and Thraxos heard the wind's cry rise in a deafening crescendo. In a moment he realized it was his own shrieking voice.

They landed with a bump, and the horse folded its wings and trotted smoothly for some dozen yards. Every step painfully jarred Thraxos, and the ropes dug into his skin with agonizing force.

The girl dismounted easily, and the pegasus trotted forward. Thraxos was about to ask what was going on, when he realized the horse was walking through water that was steadily rising around them. In another moment he was immersed in a clear, cold mountain pool.

The relief was overwhelming. Thraxos breathed in great gulps, thrashed his tail to and fro, and let the blessed cool sink in around him and over him. Looking around he could see the sides of the pool nearby. It was scarcely more than a magnified puddle, perhaps five feet deep and twenty across. The water was fresh and felt as if it had come from melting snow. At another time Thraxos might have found it too cold, but now it seemed an oasis of peace.

He was still constrained by the harness, and he could feel the gentle rise and fall of the pegasus's breathing as he pressed against the creature's side. It felt so real it was hard to believe it was the product of magical conjuration.

The animal shook its head and trotted briskly out of the pool until the water rose only to its chest and Thraxos was still partially immersed. He felt refreshed and laughed aloud with pleasure.

The girl, sitting idly by the water's side, laughed with him. He looked at her with new respect and asked, "What's your name, girl?"

"Amelia. What's yours?"

"Thraxos, of the merfblk of Waterdeep."

She nodded, absorbing this information.

"How far have we come, Ariella?"

She shook her head briskly and said, "I don't know. Before we came down I saw a big forest… over there." She gestured vaguely to the right. "I don't know how far away it is. I think we've come an awfully long way, but not as far as we need to go because I haven't seen the sea anywhere, but if I look behind us I can't see the sea either so there must be a lot of land between the sea and the sea, don't you think?"

Thraxos's headache, which had disappeared while he was beneath the water, showed signs of reappearing. He twisted around in the harness and splashed water on his face and shoulders. The girl chattered heedlessly on for a few more minutes before suddenly turning businesslike.

"Well, we'd better go on."

Once again they rose into the air and soared over Faerun. Thraxos found that time did not reconcile him to the experience of being out of water. Again, after an hour or so they descended, this time on the shore of a small lake. This time Thraxos insisted the girl release him from the harness, and for half an hour he swam around in the water, loosening his stiffened limbs. The girl seemed oddly impatient, and at times seemed almost frantic when Thraxos delayed as long as possible resuming his position in the restraining harness.

The odd group continued their journey in the same manner, rising and falling with the air currents. The sun, which had been rising in the east when they began their traveling together, reached its zenith, then set slowly in the west. They set down about every hour, though once or twice they flew longer. On these occasions Thraxos felt sick and dizzy and spent longer in the pools of water in order to recover.

Night fell, and they flew in utter darkness. They had traveled for about an hour and Thraxos felt the familiar sinking in his stomach that told of descent. His discomfort was, as usual, mixed with anticipation for the water, though the travails of the journey had eased somewhat since sunset.:

Lower and lower they drifted, and the wings of the pegasus seemed to beat more gently against the soft night breezes. Then, suddenly, Thraxos felt the familiar warmth of the horse's flank vanish. The next moment he realized he was tumbling end over end through the air. He had a moment of gut-wrenching panic before he plunged into water.

The pool was extremely shallow, more so than any they'd encountered. Fortunately, Thraxos had fallen only a dozen feet, but even so the sudden impact knocked his breath from him. He rolled in the mud at the bottom of the pool, breathing in the life-restoring water, then surfaced quickly.

"Ariella!" he called.

There was silence, broken by a rustling, then a small voice called out, Thraxos?"

"I'm here. What happened?"

More rustling, then by the dim starlight he saw a tiny figure emerge from the bushes into which it had fallen. The girl's face was dirtier than ever, and there seemed to be several long scratches along her forehead, but Thraxos saw with a surge of relief that startled him with its intensity that she seemed otherwise unhurt.

"What happened?" he asked.

She snuffled a few moments, then replied, "Freyala went away."

"Went away? What do you mean? How could she fly away from under us?"

"She didn't fly away," Ariella said impatiently. "She just went away. They all do."

Thraxos shook his head in an effort to clear it. "What do you mean?"

"They all go away after a day."

Thraxos sighed. Things had obviously been going too well to last. He should have realized that a magical mount would have only a limited span of existence.

"Can you conjure her back?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, but let's rest a while here. Besides, I'm hungry. I'm going to look for some food."

Thraxos glanced around. As far as he could tell they were on some sort of plateau. Before them the land fell away to an unguessable depth. The forest lands had given way to bare rock and scrub, with little shelter.

"What sort of things do you expect to find here?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "I think there might be some wild strawberries back there. I smelled something like that when I fell in the bushes." She giggled despite herself.

Thraxos shook his head. "I don't think you should g wandering around in the dark. We're better off contii uing the journey."

"I'm hungry." Her voice turned sulky and petulan She rose from where she had crouched to convers with the merman and walked back into the shadows.

"Ariella!" Thraxos shouted. "Don't do that! I… forbid it! It's dangerous…"

There was no reply.

"Ariella!"

Still silence. Thraxos cursed softly to himsel Human children were obviously no easier to deal wit than the children of merfolk.

A sudden squeal rent the stillness of the night, an a bright torch suddenly flared. Thraxos shielded hi eyes from the vision-obscuring flame. When he dare glance in its direction, he saw Ariella scamperin toward him. Behind her, over a low crest, came thre hulking figures. One carried a flaming brand, and aj three wielded clubs. They were clad in ragged gai ments, and their faces, low-browed and brutal, wer crisscrossed with scars. Drool dripped in streams fror yellowing tusks.

Ogres.

Ariella dodged behind the pool that shelterei Thraxos, while the ogres stared greedily at her. The; charged forward. Two skirted the pool, chasing he around it. The third stalked straight into the watei None of them seemed to notice Thraxos, his head alom protruding from the water.

The brute in the pool was allowing his club to drai in the water. Thraxos reached up unseen as the erea ture passed and snatched the club from its hands.

"Urgh?*

The ogre stared vaguely up in the air and all around, evidently convinced its weapon had been taken by some spirit of the air. Thraxos rose as high as possible and swung the club against the creature's knee with all his strength.

The ogre dropped into the pool with an enormous splash and thrashed about, howling and clutching its broken kneecap. Thraxos struck again at its head, but only grazed it. The monster seized the merman by the throat and squeezed, pain giving force to its grip.

The world swam before Thraxos. The night filled with colors, and he heard a loud roaring. Before his eyes he saw the horrid face of the ogre fade in and out af focus. In desperation, he brought up the slender end›f the club and jabbed it-at the monster's eye.

The ogre dropped the merman and fell back shrieking, covering its face with its hands. Streams of blood ran down its body and flowed into the pool. Thraxos swung the club again, and the screams stopped abruptly. The ogre fell, half in and half out of the pool.

Thraxos looked around for Ariella. She had taken shelter behind a small scrubby tree and was dodging around it as the two monsters slowly pursued her. Her slight build and speed had saved her thus far, but Thraxos knew the chase could only end in one way.

He cast desperately about for a plan. He shouted, hoping to attract the attention of the ogres, but they ignored him, intent on their smaller, more vulnerable prey. If they had seen their companion fall, they gave no sign of caring.

One of them caught Ariella's ragged dress. The girl screamed and twisted away, the cloth tearing. The ogre gave a horrid laugh and raised its club.

Groping about on the side of the pond in which 1 was imprisoned, Thraxos's hand touched somethir long and slender. The magic rod. He lifted it, and sonn thing Ariella had said earlier during the first part i their journey came back to him. The animal conjured under the control of whoever conjures it. Without fu ther thought, he pointed the rod and concentrated.

For a long moment nothing happened, and thought flickered in the back of his mind that the ro was out of charges. Then the tip glowed and flared bri liantly. The ogres, distracted by this unusual sigh looked at the merman, growling. Then another grow louder and angrier, added itself to theirs.

A tiger stood before them.

With a shriek, the largest ogre turned to flee. The tiger swept its clawed paw up and out, and the mor ster's head was torn from its shoulders. The other ogr ran, but the tiger ran faster. It leaped, there was horrid tearing sound, and the death scream of the ogr echoed in the night air.

Ariella ran to Thraxos and flung herself into hi arms, sobbing. He stroked her hair, surprised at ho\ soft it was. After a while, her crying ceased, and sh looked at him solemnly.

"Why did you do that?"

The merman shrugged. "It seemed the only thing t do. I couldn't get out of the water to attack them, an‹ they were about to kill you." He looked at the tiger, wh was calmly sitting at some distance, cleaning a paw Thraxos almost fancied he could hear the big ca purring. The merman turned back to the girl. "We'l rest here and be on our way in the morning."

She looked away, and he sensed something wrong "What is it?"

That was the last charge in the rod."

Thraxos sank back into the pool and ducked beneath the surface. His mind was churning. There had to be a way. They could not have come this far, only to fail.

In a few moments he rose. The night was still black but in the far distance, where the land sank away, he could see a few tiny pinpricks of light. He pointed them out to Ariella and said, "You must go toward there. Take the tiger with you for protection. Nothing would dare attack you as long as the beast is beside you. When you arrive at a settlement, you must tell them your name and where you are from. Tell them you have a message to take to the kingdom of the merfolk in the Sea of Fallen Stars. Tell them Waterdeep has been at-acked by armies of sahuagin, and they must prepare themselves for an assault from the sea devils. Tell them they must send whatever aid they can to the Sword Coast before it is overrun. Can you remember all that?"

The girl shook her head. Tears were close to the surface of her eyes. "You have to come too," she insisted. "Ill stay here with you. Somebody will come and find us. Youll see."

Thraxos shook his head. "No, Ariella. This is more important. When you've delivered the message, you can send someone back for me, but this word must get to the Sea of Fallen Stars. Now, repeat the message."

She had to repeat it many times before he was satisfied. All the while, he was conscious of the passing moments and of the expiring life span of the tiger she needed for protection. At last she was ready.

He pointed into the darkness. "There seems to be a trail along there leading downward. It probably goes off the plateau into the valley. When you get to th bottom, strike due west and you should find the settle ments. Hurry, now. I'm relying on you and…" Hi paused a moment, then brought out triumphant!} "Sheeraga."

"Sheeraga," she said thoughtfully, looking fondly a the great cat. "That's a nice name. Yes. I'll call you that Come on, Sheeraga."

The tiger rose, walked over to Thraxos, licked hii hair, then followed Ariella into the darkness.

Thraxos sank back into the pool and surveyed hi! surroundings. The body of the ogre, in falling, ha‹ splashed more of the water out of the pool and tha which was left was an unpleasant compound of blooc and mud, only a few feet deep.

The night passed slowly, and the sun rose, burning in the east. The pool grew hot, and tiny wisps of stean rose from its surface. By noon it had shrunk to half its size. Thraxos's body lay half in the remaining water but the pool grew steadily smaller. With a final effort the merman rolled on his side and gazed out over the rolling hills of Faerun. From where he lay, he could see far in the distance, at the very edge of sight, a thin line of blue. The sea, he thought, the Sea of Fallen Stars.

He dreamed that he dived deep into the water laughing, crying with joy, chasing fish in and out oi reefs, clinging to dolphins as they skimmed along the surface. Above him, below him, all around him was his world. Slowly it faded, and Thraxos felt a great peace.

To the west, a little girl with a dirty face and a torn dress marched stalwartly up to a cottage door and knocked. The stout peasant woman who opened the door stared at her in amazement as the girl said, "Hello. My name is Ariella. I have a message for the merfolk of the Sea of Fallen Stars. It's really quite urgent. Hadn't you better let me in? Then perhaps you can help me to get there."

Pausing, she looked behind her, where the setting sun turned the hills blood-red, and smiled.