The Dragon Isles

Chapter Twenty-Five

A gentle current tugged at the sage’s seaweed body, making the undersea titan sway slowly from side to side. Her monstrous form seemed to flow out of the coral grotto. Her leafy feet stood rooted to the sand at the cave’s entrance. The creature’s green eyes blazed in the deep blue shadows.

“Wayward Ula Drakenvaal,” the Sea Sage intoned, “we foresaw that you might deign to visit us.”

Ula bowed low and laid her spear in the sand before the weedy giant. “Great Sage…” she began.

“Insult us not with your false piety!” the sage snapped. Her seaweed form writhed threateningly, like a thousand angry snakes. “We see your mind, Landwalker. Your ambition-left unchecked-will bring ruin to all.”

“I come because I have seen the Prophecy,” Ula continued, trying to appear unperturbed. “I seek the green key.”

“Care you nothing for your kith and kin?” the sage hissed. “Care you nothing for the Dragon Isles? Weak the Veil is already. The fortune you seek lies at the cornerstone. Would you sunder all the Dargonesti have wrought?” The giant swayed back and forth like an angry cobra.

“So the treasure does exist,” Ula said, her green eyes flashing. “Where can I find the green key? Do you have it?”

“Care you nothing for our people?” the sage bellowed, rattling her fronds.

Ula’s eyes narrowed. “Our people cast me out and shunned me.”

“All Dargonesti and the sea are one,” the sage replied. “There is but one ocean-every drop of water touches every other.”

“Which is one reason I walk on land,” Ula said.

The sage’s voice grew louder, like the rushing of a waterfall. “The ruin of one can bring the ruin of all. Will you be that one, Ula Drakenvaal?”

“I’ve no desire to be,” Ula said. “I just want the treasure. The Prophecy says you hold the green key.”

The sage roared her displeasure. “The key you speak of is dross! If the Veil falls, the sea dragon will be but the vanguard of evil. The Dragon Isles will succumb to the power of the overlords. I see fire, death, destruction, the boiling of the seas! I see the end of Darthalla and the Dargonesti.”

Mik put his hand on Ula’s shoulder. “This isn’t helping,” he whispered. “Try to calm her down and ask again. Tell her we’re not going to destroy the isles.”

The Sea Sage turned her blazing eyes upon the sailor, as if noticing him for the first time.

“Defiler!” the oracle shrieked. “You will bring ruin upon us all!”

Suddenly, the creature changed. She straightened and grew taller. Her leafy fronds wound more tightly around each other, forming into knotted muscles. Huge chitenous thorns sprouted from the tips of her fingers, and foot-long fangs sprang from her jaws. The sage’s eyes blazed red, and the water around her swirled angrily.

She swung one huge hand at Ula and Mik. They ducked aside-barely in time.

The monstrous sea hag lumbered forward, tearing her roots from the sand. Her eyes were burning coals in the semi-darkness of the deep, and her weedy body writhed like a thousand serpents. A bright green spark flashed within the cave and billows of sand whirled up around the hag’s footsteps. Powerful currents surged around her, hissing and gurgling with her fury. “Death to the unbelievers!”

Mik instinctively drew his sword and swung at the creature; the sword bit, but did no damage to the leafy form. The thing swatted him aside with the back of its hand. The sailor flew through the water and smashed into the sea-bed, kicking up a huge cloud of silt.

Ula ducked under the monster’s follow-up blow. She darted forward and scooped up her spear off the sand.

The sea hag lowered one huge leafy foot at the elf, intending to crush her. Ula rolled aside, but not quite quick enough. Her long, platinum hair caught under the monster’s clawed toes. Ula’s head snapped back and she yelped in pain.

She swung her spear at the sacred column and batted the pearl-encrusted starfish off the top. The golden offering sailed through the water and skidded to a halt in the sand nearby. As it settled, the hag wobbled and her weedy muscles unraveled slightly.

Ula yanked her hair out from beneath the giant foot and turned to swim away. Before she could escape, though, the hag, with a roar like a typhoon, grabbed the sea elf by her ankle. Ula tried to kick free, but the monster held her in a grip like iron.

“The pearl!” Ula screamed. “Destroy the pearl!”

Mik blinked the dust from his eyes and rose from the sea floor. He lunged for the golden starfish and scooped it off the sand just as the hag threw Ula at him.

The sea elf hit the sailor full in the chest. Their bodies tangled together, and they both tumbled down into the muck.

The weedy hag lumbered forward, hissing and crackling as she came. “Death to the defilers!”

Mik dug the golden starfish out from under Ula’s shapely leg and smashed the pommel of his scimitar down onto the central gem. The pearl erupted into a shower of blue sparks and the golden icon shattered into a hundred pieces.

Instantly, strong currents swirled around them, building into an maelstrom of angry water. The whirlpool tugged mercilessly at the leafy form of the sea hag. She began to unravel, like a great tangled skein being undone by an invisible weaver. The hag’s huge body pulled tight, her form becoming thinner every moment. Knotted muscles, woody bones, and thorny fingers attenuated into loose strands of seaweed once more. The currents tugged at the thing’s hair, quickly unraveling her whole face. The fire in her eyes became a dim spark, quickly extinguished by the dark waters. The rest of the body followed, swept up like stacked hay caught in a cyclone.

“Landwalker, you… shall destroy… us all!” the creature wailed as it dissipated. A few seconds later, only the empty cave and the gently swaying beds of seaweed remained.

Ula sighed with relief. She untangled herself from Mik and hovered in the water just above the sailor.

Mik picked himself up again. “That went well,” he said.

Ula frowned. “And she didn’t tell us where to find the key,” she said.

“I think I know,” Mik replied. “To root Green key awaits He walked into the small cave and began to dig amid the weeds where the sage had first taken shape. Ula swam in beside him and dug as well.

Sifting through the sand, their questing hands discovered a hard, metallic object. Together, they wrestled it out of the muck and weeds and lifted it into the dim light.

The green key shimmered in the semi-darkness. Its looping golden whorls were similar to those of the black diamond key. The setting was rounder than the first key, and-like its companion-asymmetrical. At the center of the golden jewelry, rested a flawless emerald.

“Clever figuring out the ‘root’ was the root of the sage,” Ula said.

“A bit of brainpower, a bit of luck,” Mik replied. “I saw a reflection flash off something in the cave when the creature uprooted herself.”

Ula puffed out her cheeks and blew off the fine sediment covering the artifact.

I’ll keep this one,” she said, weaving the key into the elaborate web of jewelry holding her clothing together.

“Will she re-form, do you think?” Mik asked, as they exited the cave and dusted themselves off.

“We’ll be to Aurialastican by the time she does,” Ula said.

Mik rubbed his beard. “Do you believe what she said, about the isles being in peril?”

Ula shrugged and her platinum hair fell across her shoulders in a very alluring way. “Sages don’t know everything,” she said. “We’re only two little people in a very big ocean. I don’t buy all that fish oil about one person making a difference. Do you?”

“I suppose not. To Aurialastican, then?”

“And the next key.”

Mik and Ula swam up out of the pit to where Shimmer stood waiting. Mounting their draken ray steeds, they set course for Aurialastican, the capital of the Dragon Isles.

Neither of them noticed the shark with eerie red eyes that followed them.