The Coral Kingdom

6

"Flee! The vengeance of the gods comes upon us!" A dozen panic-stricken elves stumbled toward the causeway leading to Chrysalis. Some of them bled from horrible wounds, and all of them shambled with the half-dead gait of complete exhaustion.

"The trout farm!" gasped one of the Llewyrr, collapsing before a pair of guards at the start of the causeway. "We're the only ones to survive!"

"What?" demanded the guard. "What was it?"

"Horror!" groaned the elf. "I don't know what it was … it was huge! And it killed-it killed everyone!!"

As soon as they got this much of an answer, garbled as it was by fear, one of the watchmen raced toward the city gates, crying a general alarm.

Myra, ranking sister knight in the city, heard the commotion at her post near those silver portals. She raced up the winding stairs into one of the needlelike spires that lined the city's walls. In moments, she heard the shouted explanations from the causeway and ordered the city's permanent garrison of warriors to muster outside the gates.

Where was Brigit? The question loomed paramount in her mind. She knew that today the captain had intended to patrol the same valley of the Fey-Alamtine and the trout farm. Cold fear began to tighten her heart as she looked across the peaceful lake toward the fields and forest beyond. She saw nothing out of the ordinary. Indeed, the idea that some horrific beast was out there seemed unthinkable.

Nevertheless, minutes later the small company of permanent-duty guards, silver speartips gleaming in the sun, followed Myra's orders and filed out the gates and over one of the long causeways connecting the island city to the shore.

Here the elven warriors deployed in a three-rank line of pikes, blocking the most direct route into Chrysalis.

Myra watched them go, telling herself that they were just a precaution. Nothing seemed unusual about the forest as she looked to the west, but the hysteria of the trout farm workers dispelled any sense of security she might have felt. And still she wondered: Where was Brigit? The captain of the sister knights held overall command of Synnoria's troops; Myra was a mere substitute, and she longed for the older elf's guidance.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Synnoria mobilized for their own defense. The young and the old, the pregnant and the infirm Llewyrr, all fled from the far side of the city in an orderly column. Myra would have liked to send them toward the Fey-Alamtine and, if necessary, the ultimate sanctuary of Evermeet. However, the monster's approach precluded that course. Indeed, it was perhaps fortunate that she had no way of knowing that the Synnorian Gate lay in a heap of crumbled rock, shattered by the beast's violent arrival.

Now these refugees would take shelter in the wooded valleys opposite the monster's reported avenue of approach. The adults, meanwhile, gathered any weapons that they could find and began to assemble in the City's park-like grand plaza.

The warriors of the Thy-Tach tribe made haste to join in the defense force, offering nearly four dozen powerfully muscled spearmen. These trotted swiftly along the causeway behind the pikes, ready to form a backup of that formation.

Then, as Myra stared at the bright woods, she sensed that something was horribly wrong. Treetops shivered and fell away one after the other in a clearly defined path-a path that led straight toward the elven city! Myra thought of a field of tall grass where a small dog bounds through, unseen, except these were great trees, many of them centuries old. Whatever crushed them aside possessed unspeakable strength.

Finally the Elf-Eater came into sight on the wooded shore, a looming form pressing the lush pines to either side in a waste of splinters and great, muddy footprints. It rumbled forward in its awkward gait, appearing to roll along like a top reaching the end of its spin. Yet in the case of the Elf-Eater, this clumsiness was completely misleading. Clear of the trees, it leaped forward to race across the grassy field on the shore.

Silver pike tips gleamed in the sun, the same sun that had witnessed the arrival of this beast barely three hours before. The Llewyrr of the guard company stood firm, those in the fore kneeling, the second rank standing with pikes held at the waist, and the third rank with their long weapons held at shoulder height. The effect, to the front, was an array of razor-sharp steel tips, bristling like the spines of a cactus in tightly packed array.

Quickly the Elf-Eater broke from the confines of the forest, advancing across the grassy meadow in broad strides. Mutters of apprehension shook the elves as they got their first good look at the monster. Its broad snout was drawn in, gaping wide below the rim of the domed carapace, revealing its nest of churning appendages, surrounded by the web of flailing tentacles. The creature ran with one leg in front, the two others side by side to the rear.

The massive form rumbled forward, breaking into a rolling gallop on the broad field. The ground shook with each pounding step, and the monster's charge took it straight toward the wall of pikes. The elves in the path of the charge stood firm. Few of them had ever faced a real opponent before, but all of them had trained and prepared for decades-or centuries, in many cases. Now they met the test of that training and passed with fortitude.

Myra held her breath as she watched from the tower. Many more Llewyrr gathered in the streets below. The city's heavy silver gates stood closed, firmly barred. She could do nothing more except pray that the courageous pikemen and the spear-throwers of the Thy-Tach would turn the monster away.

The longest of the beast's tentacles stretched outward as it reached the Llewyrr, grasping pikes below the heads. Some sharp edges met the tendrils with their blades, but even the keen elven steel rarely pierced a leathery limb. The monster tugged against the pikes it still held firmly, jerking them to the sides and disrupting the precision of the steady line.

Not that precision mattered. The elves held their weapons braced with every muscle in their bodies, often with the butts of the weapons planted into the ground. The razor-edged pike heads, crafted of the hardest elven alloys, bore enchantments powerful enough to penetrate the hardest armor, the toughest scaly skin. But the Elf-Eater tucked its body as it rolled into the pikes, so that the bulk of the weapons met the hard carapace. The poles of a dozen pikes snapped simultaneously, the preciously crafted steel falling useless to the ground.

A few of the elves, their pikes held very low, angled the weapons below the carapace and met the skin around the creature's mouth. The weapons plunged in, and the Elf-Eater recoiled for a moment. Then a nest of tentacles converged, plucking the weapons from the wounds and casting them aside. The tentacles descended, and elf after struggling elf was plucked up and cast into the gaping maw.

On her tower-top vantage, Myra felt sick to her stomach. She saw that soon the monster would reach the city gates, and she knew that she would have to be there as well.

"Summon the clerics!" shouted the sister knight. "All the priests and priestesses of the city! Gather here at the wall!"

She cast a last despairing glance for Brigit, but she could see no sign of any white horse or rider in the splintered path of the Elf-Eater's trail. Finally she raced down the spiraling stair, quickly reaching the street, where hundreds of armed but undirected Llewyrr mingled around in growing confusion. Through apertures in the white marble wall they could see the progress of the battle.

Within a few moments of the first impact, the beast's irresistible momentum carried it through all three ranks of the pikemen, scattering the hopelessly courageous Llewyrr in all directions. A dozen vanished into the dripping mouth, and as many more lay on the ground, crushed and broken by the monster's trampling feet.

The line of pikes recoiled, fatally ruptured by the breach through its center. Individual weapons prodded and stabbed the monster, but most of these it ignored. Those pikes that attracted the Elf-Eater's attention were pulled from their wielders' hands and snapped, with the Llewyrr warriors as likely as not to immediately follow their weapons to ruin.

"Flee! Run for your lives!" Panic-an uncommon characteristic among elven warriors-spread rapidly through the rank. Some of the Llewyrr threw down their pikes and raced for the causeway into the city, only to be blocked by the company of Thy-Tach spearmen, still standing firm. Others fled across the field while a small band, perhaps a third of the original company, retained their pikes and formed a bristling square. They moved away from the Elf-Eater toward the trees, and the monster seemed content to let them go.

The Thy-Tach spearmen, standing at the very end of the causeway at the lakeshore, cast their weapons as the Elf-Eater rose above them. Several of the missiles found targets in the gaping mouth, but this did little more than inflame the monster.

The terrifying creature swept tentacles low along the ground, sweeping a half-dozen Thy-Tach from their feet. In the next moment, the monstrous beast rolled over them, muffling their screams with its huge size. When it moved past, these elves had vanished.

Next Ityak-Ortheel turned its attentions to the lake itself, moving toward the white stone causeway that led to the gleaming gates of Chrysalis. As a result of Myra's orders, many Synnorian clerics stood along the wall above the silver-steel gates. Now these clerics called upon Corellon Larethian, Solonar Thelandira, and the other multitudinous gods of the elves, praying in their hour of need for powerful spells.

As the Elf-Eater started across the causeway, leaving crushing footprints in the white stone surface, the waters of the lake responded to the clerical spell-casting and began to rise. First they washed against the banks of the causeway, and then in several places wavelets crossed the road itself. Swiftly the footprints behind the monster filled with water, and in another few moments, the entire causeway vanished under several inches of the steadily rising lake.

Waves tossed and surged over the road, rising into an unnatural mound. The monster continued its advance as water surged upward, several feet higher than the causeway. The effect of the spell was local. The lake didn't flood beyond its banks onto the field or into the streets of the city, but it continued to grow, frothing like a rushing stream, climbing into a higher and higher barrier along the length of the stone roadway, forming a long ridge of turbulence.

Tentacles lashed like eels through the water before and around the Elf-Eater, groping to hold the beast on the raised platform of stone. Waves splashed against it like breakers crashing onto a rock-strewn shore.

Then the clerics raised a great shout, and the spell culminated in an immense wave, washing upward into a peak over the causeway. The dome of the monster's carapace showed like a wet rock in the surf, but all of its body had vanished below the churning water.

No cheer rocked the city wall yet. Even had the thing been slain and dismembered before these Llewyrr, it's doubtful that they would have celebrated. So profound was the shock of the Elf-Eater's intrusion, so obscene and horrifying was its apparent purpose, that even its defeat would merely leave the elves of Synnoria in a state of numbness.

And then even that frail hope vanished, for the rounded back of the Elf-Eater continued to press through the water. White turbulence swirled around it, trailing away behind as the thing continued to move forward. The violent watery onslaught slowed it only momentarily. As long as the monster could feel the causeway, the great legs and feet continued to carry the huge body forward.

The elven clerics tried mightily, with resounding cries for power and for the blessings of their gods. The water rose still higher. Surging whitecaps rolled down the sides of the mound, but tremendous pressure continued to lift it higher. The force of the Elf-Eater's passage raised a white wave, like a frothing bone in the teeth of a fast ship.

Then finally the rising pressure surged beyond its limits. Several of the clerics groaned and staggered, falling to the ground. The dam of magic burst, and the ridge of water plunged away from the road, drawn by gravity across the surface of the lake. Dripping but undaunted, the Elf-Eater advanced toward the gates of Chrysalis.

"Quickly! Make a stand at the gates! Bring those pikes up. You archers-to the walls! Hurry if you want to live!"

Myra barked commands, trying to imagine how Brigit would have faced this challenge. Her captain must be dead, Myra knew. She would certainly have tried to fight this monster if she encountered it in the forest, and there was no way she could have survived such a battle.

"It's up to me then," she told herself quietly, trying to banish her fear. How could she-how could anyone-hope to stop this thing?

Archers lined the walls, and now a shower of arrows clacked like hail against the carapace, with no visible effect. The monster reached the gate, and great caldrons were tipped on the wall above, pouring a deluge of hot oil across the Elf-Eater's shell. Torches followed, and in seconds, a crackling inferno, belching black smoke, hissed and roared around the monstrosity.

The monster settled slowly to the ground, drawing its tentacles close, and the fire blazed away. The domed shell covered the legs and mouth; even the ropelike limbs had been drawn inside. For several minutes, the fire blazed, helped along by repeated douses of oil, and once again the Llewyrr dared to hope for deliverance. Flames sputtered and raged, spewing a column of black smoke like a dark beacon into the sky, and still the creature showed no inclination to move.

The silver gates grew dark with soot, as did the white walls of the city and the formerly gleaming towers of its gatehouse. The elven citizenry had by now made their escape from the other side of the city, and all that remained were those Llewyrr and Thy-Tach who carried weapons and were prepared to give their lives for Synnoria.

Finally the elves ceased fueling the blaze, watching carefully and waiting to observe the effect of their fiery attack. Another block of pikemen assembled inside the gate, though they had witnessed the failure of the same weapons in the field. The Llewyrr had no other tactic with which to try and stand against the beast. The flames died further, and only the blackened outline of the Elf-Eater's shell was visible to the watchers on the wall.

Then, in a shocking blur of activity, the great form raised itself from the ground to stand firmly on its three legs. The foreleg knelt low, and the dome tilted until its apex was angled toward the top of the steel gates. In the next moment, the Elf-Eater hurled itself into the portals with a thunderous charge, sending echoes reverberating up and down the valley of Synnoria.

Splinters of steel exploded through the air, knifing into many of the pikemen who stood in their steady formation. The great slabs of silvered metal broke from their hinges to fall among the warriors, crushing dozens. Even the white stone walls of the gate towers splintered and cracked, and the tall pillars swayed for a moment as if they, too, would join the gates in ruin on the ground.

The crushing blow knocked Myra to the side and she lay inside the gate, half-stunned, as the monster loomed above her, then rolled past. She tried to force her muscles to move, but they wouldn't respond to the commands of her mind. Instead, she lay motionless, expecting at any moment to feel the grasp of a clutching tendril, the quick snap of movement that would send her into that dolorous maw. She saw the crystal spire of a guard tower swaying over her head, and for a despairing moment, she prayed that the structure would fall, crushing out her awareness and sparing her the knowledge of her gruesome fate.

But the towers held. Myra saw the monster move through the wreckage of the gates, gobbling up those elves who lay in its path, but then the beast paid the city entrance no more mind, for the path into Chrysalis lay open. The Elf-Eater barged forward, barreling into the scattered pikemen and sending them tumbling like tenpins. Here the thing paused for a few minutes to gruesomely feed, snatching up the slain and wounded elves from the crowded street, snaring by the ankles many who tried to flee. These it dragged slowly, inexorably toward its gaping mouth, almost as if tantalized by the hysterical terror of the doomed elves.

Though the white stone wall surrounded the elven city, Chrysalis was not a place designed for defense. For millennia, the elven valley had stood inviolate, and this bred a long tradition of peace and an almost dazed confidence that the future would remain as untroubled as had the past.

Thus the city's avenues were wide and smoothly paved with the same white granite that had formed the causeways and so much of Chrysalis. Sweeping, open gardens beckoned an attacker, with no enclosing walls or narrow streets to restrict access.

Trees, especially birch and aspen, whose pale trunks complemented the stone so well, had been bred so that they remained green all year around, though Synnoria was subjected to the same snowy winters that affected the rest of Gwynneth. Now these trees waved gently in the breeze, their branches quaking like silver in mockery of the horror that stalked among them.

The Argen-Tellirynd, the Palace of the Ages, gleamed at the end of the wide street. That triangular edifice towered over its own transparent wall, inlaid with panels of glass and silver and diamond and even more exotic gems, sparkling like a gleaming work of jewelry. Even amid the splendor of the white, gold, and green houses and inns, the palace was a thing from another world, an enchanted place.

The Elf-Eater started down the avenue in long, rolling strides. A few elves tried to fight, with pikes and spears and even swords. None of the attacks managed to slow the beast, and few of these courageous attackers escaped with their lives. The creature moved easily between the rows of white tree trunks, coming inexorably closer to the Argen-Tellirynd.

Myra struggled with the numbness that claimed her, and slowly she forced herself to a sitting position. Her head throbbed, and every muscle in her body ached, but she ignored these minor complaints. As long as she lived, she would fight!

Staggering to her feet, she tried to ignore the wreckage of the gates, the carnage among the defenders that surrounded her. Several elves were caught beneath the heavy gates, and their groans tore at her heart. Yet the knight forced their pain from her mind, and instead, stumbled down the avenue after the lumbering Elf-Eater.

Her mind stopped spinning, and Myra forced herself into a trot. She jogged into a side street and quickly reached the small barracks and stable that the sisters maintained within the city proper. Here she found five of her comrades, armed and ready to mount. Myra quickly seized a lance and a sixth horse.

They formed a pathetically small line as they lowered their silver-tipped lances and urged their mounts into a gallop. The white horses leaped forward at the command to charge, and in moments, the riders thundered down the street, straight toward the looming Elf-Eater, their lances angled upward. The monstrous mouth gaped before them, though even that cavernous maw couldn't swallow a horse and rider, let alone a band of them.

Then, at the last instant, the Elf-Eater tucked its shell all the way to the ground. The heavy weapons slammed into the bony surface, and the long shafts splintered. The galloping horses crashed into the monster with stunning force. All of the horses and riders went down as assuredly as if they had ridden full tilt into a brick wall.

Myra flew from her saddle as her lance broke in her hands. She crashed into the monster's shell, hearing bones snap in her shoulder and arm. Involuntarily she cried out in pain as she dropped to the paved street, groaning and helpless in the very shadow of the beast.

One of the sister knights died instantly from a broken neck, but the fate of the others was just as certain-and infinitely more horrible. Haze filled Myra's mind with fiery agony. She remembered the gate, when the monster had left her on the ground in search of other prey. This time, she knew, she would not be so lucky.

Stunned and immobile, the surviving knights watched helplessly or struggled feebly as the beast picked them up, one by one, and gulped them into the drooling pit of its mouth. Myra cried out in rage as she watched her comrades perish-but then a sturdy tentacle grasped her waist. She punched at it, trying in vain to draw her sword-but in the next moment, she followed the other brave sisters into the mindlessly devouring mouth.

That task completed, the Elf-Eater raised itself above the scene of its gory repast, ignoring the injured horses that kicked and whinnied at its feet. Before the monster, glittering in the sunlight like a magnet of beauty, stood the Argen-Tellirynd, the Palace of the Ages.

Deirdre read for what seemed like a long time. Gradually, however, she found that her mind couldn't concentrate on the words. Instead, she found herself looking at the table, at the silvered glass propped there.

At first, she had purposely turned the mirror to the side, so that she couldn't see her face when she looked up from her reading. But after two hours, she grew restless. Rising to pace, she looked into the glass as she passed. Finally she turned it to face the chair and returned to her tome. She found it strangely comforting to look up and see the image of herself, the great leather-bound volume covering her lap.

She wanted to see the monster again, but the mere thought of projecting the image in the mirror caused her temples to throb and her eyes to burn. The princess knew that she needed rest before she again used the device for scrying, but she felt no desire to sleep.

In fact, her memory had served her well: She found the passage, in Khelben Arunsun's Walking the Dark Places, that she had recalled earlier. It bore a striking resemblance, in some respects, to the situation in Synnoria.

Deirdre read about a creature from the Lower Planes, a six-legged menace called Gorathil. That horror had menaced an entire nation of halflings. The monster was the size of an ox, and it scuttled about with a speedy, crablike gait. Arunsun spent much time describing in detail the horrid claws of the monster, which were used to rend the halfling prey alive so that Gorathil's tooth-studded maw could devour the pieces.

Skipping over these details quickly, Deirdre pressed ahead to the end of the section, the equally involved account of the means by which the creature was vanquished. She wondered if perhaps the description in the book was relevant to the conflict now raging in Synnoria.

To Princess Deirdre, the problem was an interesting tactical study on the use of power. The fact that her sister and mother personally fought the monster in Synnoria meant little to her, save that she would earn their respect, perhaps even their fear, if she were able to best this thing.

Carefully, deliberately, she turned away from the mirror and continued to read.

Alicia scrambled through splintered wreckage, all that remained of a once-magnificent row of proud aspens that had lined the avenue beside the Palace of Ages. The Elf-Eater was somewhere ahead of her, invisible in the smoke that drifted across the park-like expanse that had once been the great plaza of Chrysalis. Now it looked like the ground where an epic battle had been lost.

The tree creature of her staff strided along beside her. The great being had used its strength to hold and delay the Elf-Eater but, like the earth elemental, had been unable to inflict serious injury to the beast. Now the changestaff stepped stiffly forward, pausing occasionally to bend forward until its upper half extended nearly parallel to the ground. Alicia wondered what it was doing, but finally she realized that it peered thus to inspect the blind spots around buildings and hedges. She found the uncanny alertness of the beast somewhat reassuring.

Mostly Alicia's mind tried to remain numb, inured by battle to a multitude of disasters. But too often she found herself looking through the smoke and wreckage for Pawldo, and then remembering, with a burning stab of pain, that she would never see him again. Then her thoughts would turn to her father, growing into a tornado of despair and fright.

Another crackling inferno flamed before her, driving her thoughts back to the present. The monster had smashed many houses, and often a cookfire or lantern inside ignited the wreckage. The fine timber blazed like a great bonfire, and the princess crossed to the far side of the street as she passed the ruined dwelling.

For hours, she and her companions and a handful of Llewyrr who had rallied to their city's defense had harassed the Elf-Eater in a great circle. The only thing they had been able to accomplish, at the cost of several elven lives, had been the distraction of the monster, for it had not yet moved in to ravage the palace.

Yet how long could they maintain this ultimately defeatist strategy? Alicia wondered. They had to find some way to damage the beast, to somehow slay it, or at the very least force it away from the otherwise defenseless city.

Keane had expended every spell in his repertoire, and though several had seemed to anger the monster, none had inflicted any noticeable damage. Her mother's wall of fire spell had sent the Elf-Eater plunging away in apparent panic, the first, and only, real setback that any of them had delivered to the dreaded slayer.

But none of it held even the faint hope of eventual victory-and so immense was the monster's apparent power that Alicia had begun to despair of ever finding the hope, let alone the reality, of the Elf-Eater's defeat.

Brigit's voice came to Alicia from somewhere ahead along the dust-shrouded boulevard. "The Elf-Eater moves on the Argen-Tellirynd!"

Desperately weary, Alicia raised her sword and stumbled forward. A shape emerged from the murk to her left, and she smiled weakly at Hanrald as the knight fell in at her side.

"This thing is tougher than I thought," admitted the armored warrior grimly. Nevertheless the Earl of Fairheight tightened his grip on the pommel of his great two-handed sword and marched steadily up the street.

Brigit joined them next. Her smooth face was bruised, her lips puffed and swollen. Her silver breastplate remained smooth, but concealed beneath soot, mud-and blood. She brushed a hand across her eyes, and Alicia noticed that she had lost a gauntlet somewhere.

Colleen, the scout who had fought beside Brigit all day, approached out of the smoke, her expression stricken.

"I found Myra's horse," she said numbly. "Others, too-but the riders were …"

"That's enough," replied the captain, closing her eyes in momentary pain. She shook her head. How many lives would end on this day?

"Wait-we go together!" Brandon lurched from another smoky ruin, the northman's axe clutched firmly in his two hands. Others joined them from the places where they had scattered when the Elf-Eater had rumbled through. Robyn emerged from a clump of trees. The High Queen's face was smudged with smoke, but her eyes smoldered with the flame of anger. There was Keane, limping slightly. He pushed himself erect as the others came into view, joining their advance with scarcely a falter in his step.

"Argen-Tellirynd. . the palace," Brigit said, her tone dull. "It has stood inviolate for more than three thousand years." She shook her head, as if trying to dispel an enchantment of disbelief. Ahead of them, they saw the Elf-Eater, crouching motionless between a pair of blazing houses, greedily devouring the numerous limp shapes scattered on the ground around it.

Abruptly the thing rose. If it noticed the approach of the companions, it gave no sign. Instead, it rolled forward in its deceptively awkward gait until it once again stood in the middle of the street, less than a hundred paces from Alicia.

Then it started to move, rumbling away from them toward the gleaming facets of Argen-Tellirynd.

"Can you distract it somehow?" Brigit cried to Keane, her tone desperate. "Get it to come this way-anywhere but the palace!"

"When will it have enough?" groaned Keane, weariness making his voice strident. He raised a hand and barked a magical command.

Sparks hissed and crackled in the air, along with the pungent scent of a nearby lightning strike. Three balls of force, hissing and sputtering, trailing flashes and sparks in the air, hurtled into the Elf-Eater's carapace. Each exploded with a violent convulsion, searing into the creature's unnatural flesh, burning and sizzling with released force. The monster picked up speed but continued to lumber away from them.

Keane groaned and staggered. For a moment, Alicia feared that he might collapse, but then he shook his head and stumbled forward with the others. His hand closed around the steel dagger he always carried at his waist.

"For Synnoria-for the Llewyrr, and the Palace of the Ages!" cried Brigit, raising her sword and charging forward on foot. Other sisters joined her, and then Alicia, Hanrald, and Brandon shouted through hoarse throats and added their weight to the ragged charge. The tree of Alicia's changestaff lumbered beside them. Robyn trotted beside Keane, but then the druid queen cried another command. Once more the earth elemental rose from the land. This time, it emerged from among the paving stones in the street, bearing several marble slabs like plate armor, and lumbered toward the Elf-Eater.

But the marauding monster only flicked its tentacles at the pesky mortals attacking its rear. Most of the Ityak-Ortheel's attention focused on the magnificent structure before it.

The high wall, as clear as glass, surrounded the three-sided courtyard of Argen-Tellirynd. In the center of this plaza rose the pyramidical shape of the palace itself, three triangular walls that came together in a sharp peak at the top.

Rumbling faster now, too fast for the companions to keep up, the monster charged straight toward the clear wall-almost as if the thing didn't know the barrier existed. Closer it lumbered, and then it lowered its shell as it had done at the city gates.

The ground shook from the force of the impact, and a sound like thunder crashed through the air. The beast bounced back from the wall and pounded to the earth, but again, with deceptive quickness, it bounced back to its three feet.

"The wall! It didn't break!" shouted the princess, fiercely delighted.

"Look," said Keane grimly, pointing to the glasslike barrier.

Alicia's heart sank as she saw a thin spiderweb of cracks spread along the crystalline wall. The monster backed up several steps and charged forward again, crashing into the wall and stopping in its tracks. This time the sound of splintering rang through Chrysalis.

The wall still held, but obviously not for long. Pieces of the crystalline substance fell away in a glittering shower, and several gaping holes yawned in the barrier. Cracks spread farther to the left and right, casting dazzling prisms on the ground when the sun washed over them.

When the Elf-Eater bashed the wall a third time, the barrier came apart in a shower of sharp crystals. Passing through the gap, the monster entered the huge, triangular courtyard of the Argen-Tellirynd.

Deirdre returned to her mirror, fiercely determined to prove her strength in such a way that none could ever again deny it. Quickly the image found Synnoria and the city of the Llewyrr. The path of the Elf-Eater gaped like a bleeding wound across the scene, and Deirdre easily followed the trail to the edge of the crystal palace.

Her heart pounded as she saw, again, the broad triangle of the palace courtyard-and the similarly shaped structure within. Perfect!

For once, Deirdre's iron-hard confidence rested on her shoulders with less than total conviction. The task was an awesome one, the enemy a being of unthinkable power.

Yet, if she was right, that enemy had a fatal weakness, and the princess of Callidyrr was the only person who knew where that vulnerability lay.

Finally the image faded from the mirror, and she was ready to put her plans into action. Deirdre wrapped her cloak around her lithe body and closed her eyes, picturing clearly the scene that had last appeared before her eyes.

She spoke three words sharply, and then she was gone.

Sinioth ordered his two lieutenants, each a monarch in his own right, to attend him in the Great Grotto of the Coral Kingdom. This was a huge, domed cavern erected at the height of the coral ridge occupied by Krell-Bane's scrags. The giant squid coiled around a dais in the center of the grotto and waited for the others to speak.

Sythissal floated before his master, while Krell-Bane rested on the coral floor of the grotto. The latter's eyes still flashed hatred. He greatly resented the orders of Talos requiring him to accept a new master in his own realm, but he kept his wrath hidden, observing the conference with rapt attention.

"How do we catch these humans if they take to the sea?" he wondered aloud.

"There I have been making preparations," explained Sythissal, eagerly settling to the floor. His clawed hands flexed as he gestured. "My warriors have built two great ships-ships that will carry us on the surface as fast as the humans can sail! No longer will our enemies outrun us with a favorable wind!"

"These are ships of the surface?" asked the scrag king in genuine surprise.

"They wait for us under the water, but only atop the sea will they gain their highest speed. They are secreted in the Moonshaes now, ready for our master's command!"

Krell-Bane grimaced at his ally's fawning, but he couldn't contain his curiosity. "What are these vessels? Where have they come from?"

"My warriors have created them from the shells of wrecked human ships-hulls and decks we have joined, capable of carrying many hundreds of us. As to what they are," replied Sythissal, his barbed teeth flashing in a self-satisfied grin, "I have decided to call them 'Mantas.' "