Then, finally, beginning like the roll of distant thunder, carried like an echo across a series of ridges, the sound came. Swiftly the rumbling gained force, and the hull of the ship shook so that it seemed as if the planks must soon be torn from the hull.
Tavish pounded her harp, tearing across the strings with her fingers, and the music rose up as if to challenge this unnatural disturbance. But it was no contest.
The only consolation came with a look to the rear. The two rafts of sea creatures were drifting as the monsters looked this way and that, obviously seeking the source of the same rumbling that afflicted the longship.
"At least we know they're not causing it," the princess remarked to Brigit, who once again stood beside her.
"They seem to be as worried as we are," the elfwoman agreed. "Though I'm not sure that's good news."
The momentum of the rafts had carried them well forward, into the same area where Keane had first sounded the alarm. Now they came about, veering to port so as to continue to close with the Princess of Moonshae. Like the humans, however, the aquatic monsters remained preoccupied with the mysterious vibrations that seemed to disturb this whole area of the sea.
"Look! On the surface, there!" shouted Keane, pointing toward the waters at the rear.
"Under the water!" Brand corrected. "Something's moving-fast!"
At first, they wondered if it might not be another of the flat rafts, for the appearance of bubbles and movement beneath the water was reminiscent of their arrival. In the stress of the moment, no one remembered that there had been no vibration preceding their surfacing. The current phenomenon also seemed to affect a larger area of water.
The rafts drove closer, propelled by the paddles once again, as the sahuagin and scrags who weren't rowing stood up on their platforms and brandished weapons and fists toward the humans. A trap was about to close. One raft approached the Princess from dead astern, while the other closed from the port quarter.
And then the Princess of Moonshae pitched violently forward, her stern rising into the air, lifted by a powerful force from below. The longship shot ahead, sliding down a frothing wall of white water as if the ocean had been turned on edge. Spray flew upward, propelled by some massive undersea explosion, and a shower of water spilled into the rear of the suddenly careening longship.
The sea behind them continued to rise, swirling into the air, spewing a shower of brine to all side's but continuing to spin upward in a huge, towering column of seawater. A dark shape appeared in the liquid pillar. The raft directly behind the long-ship had been seized in the whirlpool and dragged upward with the force of the rising water.
"The Cyclones of Evermeet!" shouted Alicia.
Abruptly another of the great columns spewed upward from before them, and then a third and a fourth spouted from the surface. More and more of the vast, churning pillars of seawater spumed skyward, each more than a hundred paces across and apparently cylindrical all the way up the frothing surface. Water sprayed out from each, creating a drenching shower wherever the companions turned. Obviously the water thus lost was replaced, for the columns seemed to grow still larger as the awestruck witnesses watched.
Five hundred feet above them, the column of water spewed out the great raft. The flat vessel had swirled around and around the column, carried steadily upward until this point. For a few brief moments, the huge object seemed to float in the air, but then it plummeted seaward with steadily increasing speed. Hundreds of tiny forms spilled free, writhing in the air and clutching for some kind of support.
The raft struck the water flat on its hull, shooting spray for hundreds of feet to all sides and splintering into pieces from the force of the impact. Many of the raft's passengers landed atop the suddenly immobile object, perishing instantly from the long, screaming fall.
The Princess of Moonshae careened to the side, once again driven by the wind, which had freshened dramatically at the same time as the cyclones had appeared. Now Knaff the Elder guided them away from the nearest waterspout, steering as far from it as possible while still bearing west.
Within moments, white water surrounded them. Needles of spray lashed skin and stung eyes, while the roaring of angry water rose to a thunderous crescendo. Knaff, high on the helmsman's stand, tried to see what lay in their path, but he, too, was blinded by the torrent.
They might have reached the end of the world then, for with sudden abruptness the Princess of Moonshae plunged over the lip of an unseen drop, plummeting downward at breakneck speed.
"A Manta-destroyed!" Fury drove Coss-Axell-Sinioth to new heights of violence. His squid form lashed about in the depths of the Trackless Sea, the great tentacles crushing any scrags and sahuagin unfortunate enough to be caught by the stunning blows.
"But so are the humans!" hissed Krell-Bane, trembling before the avatar's rage. "They must certainly be dead!" The giant sea troll, master of his race and ruling monarch of the Coral Kingdom, unwisely spat his own anger back at the giant squid. "They sailed full into the Cyclones of Evermeet, and it's common knowledge that no air-breather can survive that tempest!"
"Can you bring me their bodies?" demanded the giant squid.
Now the sea monarch trembled before the wrath of his master. Still, the scrag king was forced to shake his head in negative response.
"Where is the other Manta?" inquired the avatar, his tone dropping to a deep rumble of menace-like an undersea earthquake, thought Krell-Bane, distant but promising the imminent arrival of a crushing wave of pressure.
"It patrols outside the Cyclone belt, awaiting the humans," explained the scrag, hoping the news would be well received. "If the ship should somehow escape-and I assure your Excellency that that is virtually impossible-then-"
"I thought you told me that it was impossible," the great squid shape reminded the scrag.
"Yes. It is-for all practical purposes, of course. There's no way-"
"Enough!" snapped Coss-Axell-Sinioth, finally growing tired of his minion's groveling. "Send all the troops we can muster to form a line at the outer edge of the cyclone belt. If they emerge, they are to be tracked and observed-not attacked until I give the word. Is that understood?"
The sea beast bowed and nodded cravenly.
"Then begone!" commanded the great squid. "Return to me when you have news!"
The sea king darted away, quickly vanishing into the emerald depths. Coss-Axell-Sinioth watched him go, growling deep in his black heart. He itched for vengeance, but had no ready target for his hatred-nothing nearby, at any rate.
His thoughts drifted to the south, to the bright coral castles in the ocean shallows of Kyrasti and the air-filled prisons formed therein. Sinioth summoned the king of the sahuagin, who had waited safely out of the avatar's range. The fishman was considerably relieved that it was the scrag who bore the onus of the attack's failure.
"Come, my faithful one," ordered the giant squid, and the hulking sahuagin, the largest living member of his race, obeyed. "It is time for you to return to the grotto. There you must tend to the prisoner."
12
The Warder of Evermeet
White water surged across the gunwales and showered from the sky in a seemingly endless stream. The dizzying plunge proved brief, but the sleek ship still raced blindly down a crashing wave. The Princess of Moonshae sagged in the water, loaded with the increasing weight of her own liquid ballast. All around, like a forest of massive columns, the pillars of water spewed upward, throwing seawater into the air with volcanic force.