The Coral Kingdom - Douglas Niles [75]
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