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  The Coral Kingdom

  ( The Druidhome trilogy - 2 )

  Douglas Niles

  Douglas Niles

  The Coral Kingdom

  Prologue

  An evil god was Malar, the Beastlord-master of marauding monsters and misshapen creatures, deity of those who existed to kill, who relished slaying innocent, helpless victims. The grotesque shape of his immortal body resembled that of a monstrous black beast, like a malformed bear, with long, ripping claws and a coarse coat that dripped fresh blood. The essence of his evil soul formed a staunch pillar of darkness in the pantheon of the gods of the Forgotten Realms.

  Restless, Malar seethed within the seat of his immortal throne. Fury fueled his foul nature, boiling, churning within him, compelling as release a savage depredation across the mortal lands beneath his sway.

  And as was so often the case when Malar's hatred erupted, his target became the mortal race toward whom he felt a special enmity: the elves.

  This is not to say that many dwarves, humans, halflings, and other benign creatures had not perished beneath the brunt of this foul god's wrath, but unquestionably elves were his favorite prey. So favored were they, in fact, that the Beastlord maintained a pet creature expressly for the purpose of slaying the members of that sylvan race. This was Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater.

  In his vindictive hatred, Malar decided that Ityak-Ortheel should once again walk the paths of the Realms. The Beastlord summoned the monster from its mire-choked lair far down among the Lower Planes. The Elf-Eater arose from the sludge, revealing a huge mass of tentacles surrounding a domed carapace and one wide, mucus-streaked mouth-a maw where countless elves had perished in the past.

  Malar knew of an elven land that was ripe for his onslaught, for it lay in a valley on a continent in flux, a place where new human cultures invaded, clashing with the old. As was always the case, such conflicts among humans created great dangers for the elves caught in the violence. Regardless of which human force prevailed, it would act vigorously to secure its borders. Any elven communities in the area faced automatic jeopardy.

  For his target, this time, the Lord of Bones selected an elven tribe known as the Thy-Tach. The community had existed in peace for more than two millennia among the stately oaks of its pastoral vale. Far from the intrigues of Toril and Kara-Tur, the Thy-Tach elves had prospered without bloodshed or violent conflict for a very long time. They carved tall totems of wood and stone, placing these in honored sites throughout the forest, nourishing and tending the woodlands and wild creatures of the valley for many harmonious centuries.

  Ityak-Ortheel changed that status very quickly. Transported through gates of arcane passage, the beast arrived in the midst of the peaceful village as evening approached, appearing with the quickness of a blinking eye. Tentacles flailing, the Elf-Eater lumbered through a pair of wooden houses, smashing them to splinters and quickly gobbling up the female and young elves cowering there. The Elf-Eater's huge bulk balanced upon a trio of legs-each club-footed, of huge girth-and this physical structure gave the monster a rolling appearance as it rumbled forward.

  Screams of sheer terror rent the pastoral valley. Wooden walls splintered into a thousand pieces, while horrible tentacles probed, as if they had intelligence of their own, through the wreckage for survivors. When a tendril seized upon an elf-young or old, male or female-the terrified victim faced the consummate horror of the monster's mouth. The blood-red aperture gaped, and the last sights witnessed by the doomed elves were the churning plates of cartilage that thrashed, like giant tongues, within that horrid maw.

  With a grotesque bellow, the monster roared through the village, crushing buildings, smashing the priceless totems, seizing elves with its snakelike tentacles. Cookfires sizzled and died, squashed by the beast's clublike feet. Great works of art, created from patterns of leaf and crystal, shattered beneath uncaring blows.

  Some of the elves tried to fight. The bravest of them, males and females alike, took up bows or spears tipped with enchanted iron heads. The Thy-Tach fired these in courageous futility, watching as the sharp metal bounced harmlessly from the monster's rough carapace. Most of the attackers quickly felt the lashing of a tentacle around the ankle, precursor to a sudden and gruesome death.

  Elven clerics, spiritual leaders of the tribe, struggled to gather the surviving Thy-Tach, fleeing into the darkness that settled over the forest. Stragglers fled the ruin of their town, gaining a precious few moments of time while Ityak-Ortheel searched the rubble for survivors-a few of which it found and quickly devoured. But within minutes, the monster knew that the village was empty and turned toward the forest in pursuit of the fleeing survivors.

  The chief cleric, a matriarch nearly a thousand years old, led her people up the steep slopes of the valley toward a notched hilltop that had long been a place of honor and meditation among the Thy-Tach. Now, she knew, that place provided their only hope of escape. The cleric held before her a gleaming shape, like a platinum triangle balanced on its point, crossed by a spiderweb of silver threads. Now these threads glowed, and the cleric followed the direction indicated by their emanations.

  The horrendous roars of the monster followed them, growing closer by the moment, as the stronger elves helped the weakest, both very young and very old, to make the difficult ascent. Trees splintered behind them, clearly marking the path of the pursuing beast. Seizing vegetation with its tentacles, the bulky monster barged up the slope, uprooting huge trees with the force of its enraged pursuit.

  Reaching the hilltop, the priestess raised a powerful prayer to the elven gods, protectors of her race even as elven numbers dwindled across the Realms. The platinum talisman flared into light, and the deities of elvendom heard and granted their favor.

  The hilltop surged into brilliant illumination, casting golden light across the darkened hills, opening as a shining passageway before the desperate elves. A broad path appeared, leading upward into the night sky, framed by a silvery arch of gleaming, translucent brilliance. In a single column, the Thy-Tach passed through this gate as the roars of the Elf-Eater grew louder. Infuriated, the creature watched in frustration as its prey slipped from its grasp.

  The venerable priestess stood at the rear of the file as the monster loomed out of the darkness, and as the last of her people fled, she passed the gleaming triangle to a younger priest, the last elf to pass through the gate.

  Finally the priestess stood alone before the mountainous presence of the Ityak-Ortheel. Serenely she turned to face the hideous form. As bloody tentacles enwrapped her, dragging her to inevitable doom within the monster's cavernous maw, the cleric's face relaxed into an expression of quiet bliss. Then the gate behind her faded, slowly replaced by the star-speckled vista of the night sky.

  The monster flailed madly, thrusting its tentacles into the closing aperture. The young priest recoiled as he disappeared from view, but one grasping tendril actually touched the platinum icon before the male cleric stumbled away. Then, as the priestess perished, the light paled and the magical gate shrank into nothing.

  The rage of the Elf-Eater was a thing that shook the world to its roots. The monster flailed about the mountaintop, knowing from past experience that its quarry was gone, for this was not the first time the monster had witnessed that hated triangle, had watched a tribe of elves escape through such a magical aperture.

  Finally Malar called his pet back to the Lower Planes, where it could wallow in its filth and digest the victims who had failed to reach the glowing gate.

  And while the Elf-Eater seethed in hatred, Malar pondered the elven escape. Too often had he been thwarted thus, and frustration was not a pleasurable sensation to a chaotic and vengeful god. He roiled and festered in his rage, t
rying to focus his fury into a grim determination.

  But through his anger burned the memory of the gleaming triangle, the tool that allowed the elven escape. Never had the Ityak-Ortheel come so close-it had actually touched the thing! The god sensed the essence of the talisman through the touch of Ityak-Ortheel. Now its image burned in his immortal mind, compelling him to find it, for he knew that if he could follow the path of the talisman, he would be able to pursue the elves who dared to frustrate him by their escape.

  One day, he vowed, he would learn the path of those who escaped him, and then vengeance would be his.

  PART I: SYNNORIA

  1

  A Royal Funeral

  Robyn Kendrick, High Queen of the Ffolk, stood at the highest window of her castle, watching the sun-speckled waters of Whitefish Bay, the bustling commerce of Callidyrr, and the thriving fields and pastures that spilled across the moors to the highlands beyond. She looked upon this scene of prosperity and beauty, and she felt as though she would perish from the force of her own despair.

  "He lives!" she whispered softly. "He is not dead!"

  Too often in the past days she had spoken the words aloud, and this had caused the eyes of her daughters or her servants to look at her pityingly. They thought she was losing her mind, she knew, and the queen sensed that now, of all times, she could not let her subjects begin to wonder about her fitness to rule.

  "It's true!" she told herself, yet even Robyn had begun to wonder how she could continue to cling to such a hollow hope.

  True, there had been no body-but when was there ever a body when a ship went down at sea with the loss of all hands? The High King's vessel had sailed on the return leg to the Moonshaes, following an important trading mission to the Sword Coast kingdoms of Callidyrr and Amn. Somewhere in the vast reaches of the Trackless Sea, south of the Moonshae Islands, the ship had encountered a surging tempest of storms typical of the gales that swept across that wide stretch of ocean. The ship had entered the maelstrom and it had failed to emerge.

  The news had come to Callidyrr, the great city where the High King had made his capital and his home, more than three weeks before, and in all that time, there had been no information to indicate any chance of his survival. Even the stubborn Ffolk, grief-stricken and frightened as they were, had begun to accept the reality of the loss of their king.

  Robyn's own daughters had faced the grim truth, though each in her own unique way. The elder, High Princess Alicia, had embarked on a vigorous regimen of weapons training, as if her skill with sword and bow might help to avert a future tragedy. In this, Alicia was aided by good friends-most notably Brandon Olafsson, Crown Prince of Gnarhelm and a proud northman sailor. Brandon professed his love for the princess in every expression of his face, every jealous glower in his blue eyes as he looked at the two other men who also stood high in the princess's friendship and affection.

  One of these was Hanrald Blackstone, newly appointed as Earl of Fairheight following the death of his father. Hanrald had been trained as a knight, and the honor and chivalry of that calling marked him as clearly as did his plate mail breastplate or his proud, crested helm. Yet that stiffness displayed itself in a reserve that held Hanrald aloof while his more hot-blooded rival pressed his suit vigorously.

  The third man, Robyn realized, might not be recognized as a rival by Brandon or Hanrald. Indeed, a cold part of the queen's mind told her that he made a less desirable match for her daughter politically than did either the earl or the prince. Keane of Callidyrr had been Alicia's tutor for more than ten years and still treated the princess with protectiveness as much as affection. Yet of the three, the magic-using teacher came closest to understanding Alicia Kendrick.

  Now, however, Robyn knew that the choice of a husband was not Alicia's concern. Instead, she needed the comfort of her friends as she struggled to grasp the reality of her father's loss. Currently, as Robyn looked upon her realm, Brandon captained a longship that carried the princess and her companions to Corwell, where the queen would join them shortly. Because of these friends, thought the queen, the High Princess had adapted better than either her mother or her sister in accepting the loss of the High King.

  For a moment, Robyn's thoughts turned to her younger daughter, Deirdre. As always, her mind raised far more questions than it answered.

  Dark-haired Deirdre had a personality that matched the color of her long hair. Distant and cool toward her family-toward everyone-the younger princess had fostered a life in studies, scrolls, and books. She was a young woman of great intelligence and barely concealed ambition. Often, during their childhood, Robyn had worried about the younger girl's jealousy of her older sibling, wondering whether that emotion would grow into the kind of hatred that could rend asunder a kingdom and a people.

  Then, during the girls' adolescence, the queen's worries had lessened. Deirdre ceased to display the overt hostility that had characterized her childhood. Though she had never become close to her sister, she had tended to treat her with indifference rather than rage. Alicia, on the other hand, had never lacked for trusted friends, so her sister's coldness hadn't seemed to create a void in her life.

  But now, in a matter of months, Robyn's concerns had flared into full-blown fear. Something had happened to Deirdre, something mysterious and darkly menacing. Through her studies, the young woman had touched powers that were not meant for the casual scholar, powers that required from their wielder a price as great as they granted.

  True, Deirdre's visible use of that power had been fortuitous. She had employed it to aid Alicia in breaking a thrall of storms and natural violence that had wracked the Moonshaes for several years. Yet in that accomplishment her daughter's arrogance and envy had reasserted itself, so that the queen once more feared that the spite felt by a sister could fan itself into a blaze that might drive a nation to destruction.

  Robyn knew that the Moonshae Islands stood at a critical time in their long history. Only once before, under the reign of the hero Cymrych Hugh, had the four kingdoms of the Ffolk stood united under a single throne. Yet Cymrych Hugh had died with no clear heir to the throne, and within a generation, the isles had again broken into political fragments, easy prey for the northmen invaders who had gradually claimed much of the land.

  Now Tristan Kendrick, the second High King to unite the Ffolk, had perished. He left a queen-a strong queen, Robyn reminded herself-and two daughters. Though the Ffolk, unlike the northmen, had never disparaged the rulership of a queen simply on the basis of her sex, Robyn knew that she would have to prove her fitness to continue the Kendrick line, and in that process, she must ensure that Alicia would inherit the kingdom upon her own death.

  Her goal seemed clear, but there were so many obstacles, and as she thought of those obstacles, she came back to the plans that had caused her to pause, musing, at the window in the first place.

  A harsh knock at the door, though not unexpected, broke Robyn's reverie. "Come in," she said.

  The door opened to reveal Deirdre Kendrick. The princess's black hair floated behind her, unbound and silky long, as she moved softly into her mother's chamber. The two women looked remarkably similar, though the maturity and sorrow of age had unmistakably marked the mother with lines around her mouth and eyes and a fringe of gray that had begun to lighten her long black hair. "You wished to see me?" Deirdre said.

  Robyn knew what she needed to say to her daughter, and she knew that Deirdre wouldn't like it. She found it difficult to begin.

  "Yes, my daughter. Please come here. I was enjoying the view."

  Silently the princess joined her mother.

  "Summer," observed the queen. "Such a vital, vibrant season. Doesn't it make you feel alive?"

  Deirdre smiled, but her eyes remained hooded. "Books make me feel alive, Mother-and they do so even in the dark of winter."

  Robyn suppressed a sigh, turning to face her daughter squarely. "I wish to speak with you about those books, about the forces you read about and touch. You bring a s
hadow around yourself. There is a darkness that surrounds you-a darkness you wear about your shoulders like a cloak. It disturbs me. You've opened the doors to places that can't help but change you. The powers you touch are very dangerous things!"

  "Of course they're dangerous! But I know how to use them, and every day I learn more!" Deirdre's reaction was anger, and her green eyes flashed with the heat of her emotion. "I follow a pathway to power without limit, without restriction-a road I've chosen for myself!"

  "Without the limits, for example, imposed by a god-or goddess?" Robyn asked pointedly.

  Deirdre shrugged. "You have your own life, Mother, and the goddess has chosen to favor that life. Once again you wear the mantle of the Great Druid, but that's not the way for me!"

  "Your sister shows a growing awareness of the Earthmother," the queen said. "She wears the bracers of a druid, and soon she will bear the staff that I'm making for her. I should like to grant you an equal gift, my daughter-but I don't know what it should be."

  "There is something that I desire very much," Deirdre replied, her tone level, her eyes serious.

  "If it falls within my power-"

  "It is freedom, Mother-freedom from you, from the goddess! I have to be free to follow my own course, through the spellbooks and scrolls of wizardry. I need to see the hallowed places of magic in the Realms, visit the great sages, have the freedom to learn!"

  Her impassioned voice rose as she spoke, and when she stopped suddenly, an almost unnatural silence settled over the room and the world outside, as if the birds and insects, even the wind, paused to see what happened next.

  "No," the queen said, quietly and firmly. "You're one of two royal children. You must be prepared to rule should it be required of you. Your place is here, in Callidyrr-in the Moonshaes."