The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [132]
The Earl of Fairheight felt a sudden penetrating chill, and with a sidelong look at Brigit, he knew that she had experienced the same thing. The sea had surrounded them ever since they left the ship, but now it pressed against their skin, obstructing movement and blocking speech as the first of Keane's spells, the enchantment of free action, slowly dissipated. If it hadn't been for their heavy armor, the natural buoyancy of their bodies would have floated the knights right off the platform.
With the passing of this effect, they knew that it was only a matter of time-minutes, or perhaps merely seconds-before the protection of the second enchantment faded.
That, of course, was the spell of water breathing.
* * * * *
The time was now, Deirdre knew. Her teleportation spell, coupled with the knowledge gained from her mirror, gave her the ability to travel instantly to the point of decision. This time, however, before she cast the spell, she picked up her mirror. Wrapping the glass once more in its leather blanket, she clutched it beneath her arm and concentrated upon the precise enchantment.
Teleportation was always a tricky matter. Normally the spell depended upon the sorcerer traveling to a place that she knew very well; otherwise it was impossible to coordinate the point of arrival with the real world. Although an error of five feet to one side or the other might not make a lot of difference, a mistake that brought a magic-user through a teleportation five feet too low would almost certainly prove fatal.
But such was the unerring accuracy of the visions in Deirdre's mirror that, so long as she was certain to take reasonable care, the sorceress had no difficulty performing a teleportation to a coordinate she had pinpointed through her arcane scrying glass.
Now she carefully chanted the words to her spell, calling into her mind the picture she had witnessed scarce moments before. In a twinkling instant, she vanished from Caer Callidyrr.
As she expected, the mirror provided her with an uncanny sense of precision, for she arrived in the stern of the longship, appearing so suddenly that Knaff the Elder nearly stumbled over the stern in astonishment. Brandon gaped at her in shock as she brusquely stepped passed him, advancing to the transom and staring intently through the wake.
There, drawing quickly nearer, she made out the shape of the giant squid-the being she would no longer call Malawar.
* * * * *
Marqillor's warriors ripped through the line of Sinioth's followers, individual mermen diving amid the scrags and sahuagin, stabbing with long spears while they used small, tortoiseshell bucklers to deflect the weapons of the scaly carnivores.
At the same time, the squid closed on the stern of the long-ship, racing upward with lightning speed, reaching with those grasping tentacles to wrap the Princess of Moonshae in a crushing grip.
However, at this precise moment, the younger Princess of Callidyrr appeared on the longship's rear deck. Northmen cursed and growled at the woman's startling sorcerous arrival, some making holy signs in an attempt to ward off evil, but Deirdre ignored them all. She had attention for only one target, and that one swam in the dark waters of the Princess of Moonshae's wake.
"You!" Deirdre cried, her gaze piercing the squid's body with almost physical force. "You escaped me once-but not again!" She yanked the leather wrapping off the object she held in her hands, revealing a gleaming surface of reflective glass.
Then Deirdre raised her hands, still holding the crystal pane, and the horrific monster recoiled from her gesture-or was it the mirror that caused the avatar to cower? Tentacles lashed through the sea as the creature dove, dropping out of sight beneath the longship's hull. The next moment, the squid shot upward, slamming into the keel, rocking the vessel violently. The sudden impact knocked Deirdre and a number of crew members to the deck.
The young woman screamed-out of fear for her mirror, not for herself. Landing flat on her back, she clutched the