Deirdre grew more and more fascinated by the avatar of evil, watching the huge body flex through the submarine chamber, thrashing in battle with lesser creatures. Partly her desire was for vengeance, but in greater part it was a lust, a craving for the power that the great beast contained within its unnatural form. Power that could belong to Deirdre, once she prepared the means of mastering it.
Yet, still, she lacked a weapon.
"Down!" commanded Brandon. He pointed, in case Knaff misunderstood his intent, but the bow of the longship already dipped in response to the helmsman's touch. Below, the huge dome of the palace rose through the emerald depths. For the time being, the Princess of Moonshae was free of immediate enemies. Except for the scrags who had charged away in pursuit of Hanrald and Brigit, the monsters who had resisted their initial approach were all dead. Even so, the air in the boat remained dense and fetid. Sweat rolled from each crew member in steaming rivulets.
"Hold on!" the captain shouted in warning. "We're going to ram!"
Alicia clung to the mast, her sword in her hand and her eyes on the huge crystal pane before the Princess of Moonshae's bow. The longship rocked downward as Knaff pressed on the tiller, and then she lunged ahead, the proud figurehead with the gleaming silver helm driving toward the smooth, transparent surface.
The crash nearly tore Alicia loose from her perch, but she held tightly to the stout timber, staring in shock as the emerald plane shattered. A great bubble of air erupted around them as seawater plunged into the space of the huge undersea dome. The longship followed the flood, the narrow bow plummeting through the aperture into the dome. Ten feet of the hull followed, and then the widening gunwales wedged firmly against the sides of the shattered window.
A gangly figure tumbled past Alicia, and she saw the flailing form of her changestaff spilling like a felled tree toward the bow. Branches thrashed out as the thing tumbled past the figurehead, and then the trailing limbs wrapped around the wooden prow. The tree being arrested its fall at the last possible minute, an instant before it tumbled into the maelstrom below.
White water flooded past them, thundering in a cascading torrent into the vast, circular chamber, but still the enchanted blanket of air over the longship maintained its protective presence.
Alicia searched desperately below, seeking her father through a chaos of white water and flailing bodies. Then she saw Tristan in the grip of a writhing snake. She watched in horror, screaming unconsciously, as the king disappeared beneath the surface, and at the same time, she made out the huge creature thrashing there. Appalled, she understood that the thing grasping her father was not a snake but a mere appendage of a much larger monstrosity.
Tristan flailed back to the surface, grasping about with his hand, pounding his arm against the tendrils around him. He reached for something, anything, but nothing met his grip, and once more he vanished.
Robyn dove forward, and once again Alicia saw the sleek form of white and black, the whale's teeth and the powerful, driving flukes. The killer whale dove at the squid, and her wide jaws clamped around the widest tentacle, near the base of the writhing limb. Both sea creatures flailed through the great room, and Alicia saw her father flung free from the squid's grasp.
A huge scrag swam out of the shadows, a long trident extended before him. The beast drove the tines of the weapon into Robyn's flank, and the killer whale twisted reflexively, releasing the squid with an involuntary flexing of her powerful jaws.
The tentacled horror dove away at high speed, coming to rest in a murky cloud at the bottom of the huge chamber. Alicia realized that it had released the cloud, providing its own cover as it retreated from the fight.
But now another wave of sahuagin and scrags attacked the trapped Princess of Moonshae, swarming from the surrounding towers and walls as if they had gathered their strength for this massive rush. In the chamber, Alicia saw things that looked like humans, until she realized that they had huge fishlike tails. Mermen! Several of the aquatic beings swam across the room to circle protectively before Tristan.
Water continued to pour into the cavernous dome through the shattered window, and consequently the air pocket shrank steadily, raising the level of the choppy surface. The High King splashed to one of the niches in the wall, but soon the rising sea forced him out. Swimming, he started through the turbulence toward the Princess of Moonshae's prow, the proud figurehead jutting through the ceiling, now no more than a dozen feet above him.
"Father!" cried Alicia, scrambling down to the bow, holding on to benches and sailing lines to keep her balance on the steeply inclined surface. She barely caught herself at the figurehead, holding tightly to the stout timber as she leaned over the rail. Beside her, she saw the lanky form of her changestaff, also clinging precariously to the prow.
Desperately the princess looked around, gathering a coil of rope and then searching for Tristan's head, but the king once more vanished into the frothing turbulence.
Then she saw two of the mermen and her father's bearded face between theirs. Slowly they made their way toward the longship, circled protectively by the great killer whale.
"Here!" Alicia shouted, throwing the line and securing the end around the trunk of her changestaff.
Then the water bubbled around the trio, and Alicia screamed as one of the mermen rose from the brine, the tines of a scrag trident emerging from his chest. Blood turned the water pink as the brave creature perished.
The lashing limb of a monstrous tentacle suddenly whipped through the water again, and Alicia saw the squid shoot up from the floor. Tristan shouted something, then vanished with shocking suddenness. The princess saw a flash of black and white skin, a tall dorsal fin, and then the powerful killer whale disappeared after the monster.
"No!" cried Alicia, shaking her head in anguish. Then, before she stopped to think, she drew her sword and dove headlong into the water, aiming the blade like a harpoon at the place she had last seen the great squid.
She felt slick, leathery skin before her and drove the blade into the monster's body, feeling it lurch away from the force of the blow. Opening her eyes, Alicia saw nothing but bubbles, but then a hand came into view-a human hand! She reached out and grabbed it, kicking upward and raising her head above the surface in time to gulp one precious gasp of air.
Something wrapped around her leg, and she chopped with her sword, still holding on to the hand. For a moment, she glimpsed Tristan's face as the king broke from the water and drank in a breath, then father and daughter plunged below, caught in the nest of snakelike tendrils.
Alicia saw the darting forms of mermen around them, the black and white skin of the great druid nearby, and she drove her keen blade again and again into the tough body that seemed to drag her and her father ever deeper into the flooded chamber.
And then abruptly they broke free. She swam upward in a frenzy, feeling her father kicking beside her. Just when she thought they must certainly drown, their faces broke from the water only a few feet from the longship's bow.
"Here!" The frantic voice belonged to Keane, who threw a rope toward them. Alicia and Tristan seized the line and hung on for dear life. "Pull!" cried the mage as a dozen crewmen scrambled to help him.