The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [2]
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, trying 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,