All her life, Anarzee had felt a special affinity for the sea. She felt its rhythms as surely as most elves responded to the cycles of moonlight. Even her appearance echoed the sea, for her hair was a rare shade of deep blue, and her eyes a changeful blue-green. As a child, her favorite playground had been the white sands of Siiluth, and her playmates had been the sea birds, selkie pups, and the Sea elf children who lived near its shores.
But now most of those children were dead. Even Anarzee’s mentor, an ancient Sea-elven priest of Deep Sashales, had been slain in the endless battles with the sea trolls. The selkies, too, had disappeared, seeking the islands to the distant north where they might raise their young in safety. Thus it was that Anarzee, though she was born into a large and vibrant clan, and though the wonders of Leuthilspar surrounded her, was at a young age left very much alone.
The coming of the young warrior Darthoridan Craulnober to Leuthilspar had changed all that. He and Anarzee had fallen in love nearly at first sight. She went with him gladly to the northern coast, and together they fought the creatures who had destroyed her world, and who threatened his. With the birth of Seanchai, their firstborn son, the two worlds became one and the same for Anarzee. She would do whatever was needed to ensure her child’s future.
Anarzee’s eyes clung to the towers of Craulnober Keep as her ship left the safety of the docks. It was bitterly difficult to leave Seanchai, although he was weaned now and just starting to toddle. If the choice was entirely hers to make, she would spend every moment of his too-brief childhood delighting in her babe, singing him the songs he loved and telling the tales that kindled dreams in his eyes. After all, in just a few short decades, he would be a child no more!
The elf woman sighed, taking some comfort from the knowledge that Darthoridan remained behind in command of the shore’s army. Anarzee had insisted that he remain. If this first strike should fail, the clan—and especially their son—must be protected from the certain retaliation meted out by the Coral Kingdom.
Even if her mission were to fail, it would not be the last. The ship upon which Anarzee stood was the first of many. Specially designed to resist scrag attack, armed with powerful elven magic and over a hundred fighters, it would strike a decisive blow against the sea trolls and begin the process of reclaiming the waves. Anarzee ran her hand along the thin, translucent tube that ran the length of the ship’s rail. The scrags might notice that this ship was different, but they would never suspect what lay in store for them. And how could they know? Never before had an elven ship deliberately set itself aflame.
The ship was still within sight of the coast when the first of the scrags struck. The vessel jolted to a stop, then began to pitch and rock as powerful, unseen hands scrambled at its underside.
Anarzee knew all too well what the creatures were doing. Scrags would board when necessary, but they preferred to scuttle a ship by tearing holes in its hull, thereby forcing the elves into the water. But the outside of this ship was perfectly smooth and very hard—it had been grown from crystal and provided no handholds for the scrags to grasp. Nor could the creatures break through it with their teeth or talons. They would be forced to fight, and on elven terms.
A small, grim smile tightened Anarzees lips, and she nodded first to the small Circle of High Magi, then to the archers who stood waiting by blazing fireboxes. “It won’t be long,” she murmured. “Begin chanting the spell. Light the arrows … now!”
Even as she spoke, several pairs of scaly hands clutched at the rail. The archers dipped their arrows into the fire and took aim. Anarzee lifted one hand, her eyes intent upon the swarming scrags. Timing was crucial—if the archers fired too soon, the creatures would simply fall back into the water, where the flames would die and the creatures’ arrow-torn flesh regenerate.
The sea trolls moved fast, and they often moved together like enormous, schooling fish. In the span of two heartbeats, all the scrags had swarmed aboard. It was a large hunting party—over a score of full-grown trolls.
Anarzee dropped her hand and shrieked, “Now!”
Flaming arrows streaked toward the scrags, sending them staggering back toward the side of the ship. Some of the creatures began to climb the rail, instinctively heading for the safety of the waves.
But at that moment the magi’s spell was unleashed. With a sound that suggested a hundred goblets shattering against a wall, the crystal vials embedded in the rail exploded and released the fluid that bubbled within. A wall of flame leapt up all along the ship’s rail, barring the scrags’ escape and setting alight many of those that had escaped the archers flaming arrows.
Shrieking and flailing, the burning trolls instinctively darted away from the eldritch flame behind them. Elven warriors rushed forward to meet them, armed with protective spells against the heat and flame. They fought with grim fury, determined that no scrag would break through their line. Slowly, inexorably, they pressed the dying trolls back into the flames.
It seemed to Anarzee that the fire and the battle raged for hours, but she knew it could not truly be so. Trolls burned quickly. Behind the warrior elves, the Circle continued chanting the magic that sustained both the fighters and the flame—and that kept the fire from breaking past the wall of elven warriors. Sooner than Anarzee had dared to hope possible, the battle neared its end.
It was then that the sahuagin came. The first one to board the ship did so not of its own will or power. Shrieking and thrashing, a sahuagin tumbled through the wall of flame—no doubt having been picked up bodily by its comrades and thrown through the magic fire. Like a living bombard, the sahuagin hurtled toward the elven defenders.
A startled elf managed to bring his sword up in time, impaling the creature as it fell. But the weight of the fish-man brought the elf down, too.
The sahuagin might have been unwilling at first, but it knew what to do now. Claws and teeth scrabbled and tore at the pinned elf’s face and neck. By the time the elves pulled the creature off their brother, the sahuagin horde had claimed its first kill.
Other sahuagin followed in like manner, tossed up onto the ship by the unseen creatures beyond and falling like hideous hail upon the deck. Some of them survived the fall, and the battle began anew.
Anarzee spun toward the magi. “The flame wall slows them down, but it cannot keep them out! What else can you do?”
The white-haired male who served as Center pondered briefly. “We can heat the water right around the ship itself to scalding. What creatures this does not kill, it will drive off.”
She frowned. “And the ship?”
“It will be at risk,” the mage admitted. “The heat will make the crystal hull more brittle and fragile. But even if the sahuagin were to understand this weakness, they could not stand the heat long enough to take advantage.”
“Do it,” Anarzee said tersely, for there was little time to waste in speech. A sahuagin had broken through the fighting. Its black, webbed feet slapped the deck as it raced toward the magi’s Circle.
The priestess snatched a harpoon from the weapon rack and braced it against her hip. At the last moment, the creature veered away, slashing out with its claws—not at the armed elf woman, but at one of the chanting magi.
Anarzee leaped at the sahuagin, thrusting out with all her strength. The harpoon sank home. She dropped the weapon at once, sickened by the dying creature’s screams, which were echoed by a hellish chorus of the scalded sahuagin in the seething sea beyond.
For a moment, it all threatened to overwhelm her—the scent of burning troll flesh, the slick wash of elven blood and vile ichor upon the crystal deck, the pervasive cloud of evil that surrounded the sea creatures. The priestess closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath.
In that brief moment, all was lost.
The dying sahuagin seized the nearest weapon—the still-smoldering, severed hand of a troll that lay on the deck nearby. With all its remaining strength, the sahuagin hurled the hand at the white-haired mage who acted as Center to the circle
of spellcasters. The sahuagin’s aim was true, and the scrag hand clamped around the elf’s throat in a killing grip. Smoking black talons sought the vessels of life, and plunged in deep.
When the Center died, the magic of the Circle simply dissolved. The wall of fire that warded the ship flared high, then disappeared. The billowing steam from the magically heated sea wafted off to become just one more fleecy cloud in a summer sky. In the sudden silence, the elven magi looked about, dazed and disoriented, as they struggled to emerge from the disrupted spell.
At that moment a dull, clinking thud resounded through the ship, and then another. The sahuagin survivors had returned to renew the fight. The sea was too vast, too alive with movement, for the heated water to remain a barrier for long.
The captain of the elven fighters ran to Anarzee’s side. “The sahuagin have metal weapons,” she said urgently. “It is possible that they will break through the weakened hull. If we are thrown into the water, we can do nothing to fight them.”
“Not as we are,” the priestess agreed.
In a few terse words, she told the captain of the desperate plan that was forming in her mind. The warrior nodded her agreement without hesitation, and hastened off to prepare her fighters for what might befall them. This ship and the elves who sailed it were doomed, but if the gods were willing, they might yet serve the People of Evermeet.
Anarzee fell to her knees and began the most earnest prayer of her life. She called upon Deep Sashales, not for deliverance, but for transformation.
As she prayed, the air around her seemed to change, to become unnaturally thin and dry. Her hearing took on new dimensions, as well. She could hear the terrible thuds and crackles that bespoke the shattering hull, and the whoops and cackling laughter of the triumphant sahuagin. But mingled with this airborne cacophony were other, subtler and more distant sounds—sounds from beneath the waves themselves.
As water lapped over the deck and soaked the kneeling priestess’s robe, Anarzee found that she did not fear the depths, or the creatures in them. She leaped to her feet and ripped off the encumbering garments of a land-dwelling elf. Snatching up a harpoon with a newly webbed hand, the priestess—now a Sea elf—leaped from the dying ship and into the waves.
All around her, the new-made Sea elves fell upon the sahuagin with weapons and magic. This wonder cheered the priestess and sped her in battle, for naturally born Sea elves did not possess magic! This was what was needed to defeat the Coral Kingdom. Why had she not seen it sooner? As magic-wielded sea People, what a force they would be for Evermeet’s defense!
Only much later, when the sahuagin were defeated and driven away, when the exhilaration of battle slipped away and the euphoria of victory faded, did the full realization of her sacrifice strike home.
Anarzee did not regret what she had done, nor did any of the other elves cast recriminations upon her. All were pledged to protect Evermeet, and they were resigned to do so as fate decreed.
But oh, what she had lost!
That evening, the Sea-elven priestess slipped from the waves to walk silently upon the rocky shores under Craulnober Keep. As she anticipated, her Darthoridan was there, gazing out to sea with eyes glazed with grief. She stopped several paces from him, and softly called his name.
He started and whirled to face her, his hand on the hilt of his mighty sword. For a long moment, he merely stared. Puzzlement, then startled realization, then dawning horror came over his face.
Anarzee understood all these emotions. She was not surprised that her love did not recognize her at first, for she was much changed. Her body, always slender, had become streamlined and reed-thin, and her once-white skin was now mottled with swirls of blue and green. The sides of her neck were slashed by several lines of gills, and her fingers and toes were longer and connected by delicate webbing. Even her magnificent sapphire-colored hair was not what it once had been, and she wore the blue-and-green strands plaited tightly into a single braid. Only her sea green eyes had remained constant.
“The raising of Iumathiashae has begun,” she said softly, for it was their custom to speak of matters of warfare and governance before turning to their personal concerns. “A great Sea-elven city will stand between the Coral Kingdom and Evermeet, for High Magic has returned to the elves of Evermeet’s seas. We will re-people the seas, and provide a balance for these forces of evil. The shores of Evermeet will be secure; the seas will again be safe. Tell the People these things,” she concluded in a whisper.
Darthoridan nodded. He could not speak for the scalding pain in his chest. But he opened his arms, and Anarzee embraced him.
“I accept my duty and my fate,” the Sea elf said in a voice rich with tears. “But by all the gods, how I shall miss you!”
“But surely you can spend much time ashore,” he managed.
Anarzee drew back from him and shook her head. “I cannot bear the sun, and the nights are when the evil creatures are most active, and my duty most urgent. I will do what I can, and what I must. This twilight hour will be our time, brief though it is.”
Darthoridan gently lifted her webbed hand and kissed the mottled fingers. “Thus it is ever with time. The only difference between us and any other lovers who draw breath is that we know what others seek to ignore. Joy is always measured in moments. For us, that must be enough.”
And so it was. Each night when the sunset colors gilded the waves, Anarzee would come to speak with her love and to play with her babe. When at last she had to relinquish Seanchai to his nurse, she would linger in the water below the keep and sing lullabies to her child.
In the years that followed, the lovers found that their times together came less and less often. Darthoridan was called often to the councils in the south, and Anarzee roved the seas in defense of her homeland. But she returned to the wild northland coast as often as she could, and to her son she gave the one gift she had to give: the songs taught to her by the merfolk and the sea sirens and the great whales, stories of honor and mystery from a hundred shores.
So it was that this boychild grew to become one of the greatest elven minstrels ever known, and not merely for his store of tales and songs of heartbreaking beauty. Even his name, Seanchai, came to denote a storyteller of rare skill. But there was never another who equaled his particular magic, for the noble spirit of Anarzee flowed through all his tales like air and like water.
12
The Starwing Alliance
he harbor of Leuthilspar was silvered with the promise of dawn when Rolim Durothil and Ava Moonflower slipped away from the home they had shared for many years. They left behind them a large gathering of their kin—Gold and Silver elves alike—as well as a multitude of elves from all clans and races who had come to do honor to Evermeet’s High Councilor and his consort, the Lady High Mage.
It was difficult for Rolim not to reflect upon what he was leaving behind. He and Ava had been blessed with an unusually large family. They had raised seventeen healthy children, who had in turn given them grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. These offspring had increased both the Durothil and the Moonflower clans. Some of their kin had gone on to form alliances with other ancient houses, as well as with newcomers—elves who had come to Evermeet by sea, or through the magical gates that linked the island to places hidden within the elven realms. He and Ava had been fortunate in their family, and in each other. They had lost kinfolk, that was true. Their daughter Anarzee was all but lost to the sea, though she served Evermeet still as a Sea elf, and a few of their grandchildren had perished in the sea battles that, though less common, were still a grim reality of life on the elven island. But the losses had been somewhat easier to bear for Rolim, in that he had such strength ever at his side.
Rolim looked fondly upon his wife of over seven centuries. Her gray eyes were serene, and the oddly dull, kitten-soft gray of her hair was streaked at last with elven silver.
But for that, there was little in her face or form to mark the passage of years. Ava appeared to b
e nearly as youthful as the day they married, and in his eyes she was far more beautiful.
Together the aged couple climbed the easy slope of the mountain that overlooked the river and the city beyond. For a long time they stood there, looking out over the place that had been their home.
On this, her last day upon Evermeet, Ava’s heart was filled with a poignant mix of joy and sadness. She had loved this land and the People in it, but she was prepared to go. Her farewells had all been said in a celebration that had lasted three days. No one had come to the mountain to see them off. This time was theirs alone. She smiled at Rolim, and was surprised to see that furrows lined his brow. He looked deeply troubled—an odd thing, considering the peace that awaited them.
Ava tucked her arm into his. “You have served Evermeet with honor, my lord,” she reminded him. “And Tammson Amarillis will be a fine High Councilor. You have trained him well.”
The Gold elf sighed. “I have no fear of Tammson. It is our own brood, and their hot-blooded young friends, who give me pause.”
It was not the first time Rolim had spoken of this concern to her. There were among their Gold elven descendants some who were not immune to the growing pride of the self proclaimed Ar-Tel’Quessir—the “high elves.” It had been a matter of no little concern to Rolim. Gold elven sentiments concerning the innate superiority of their kind was growing to the point where the young elves threatened to mirror the dangerous attitudes of Aryvandaar’s ruling elite. Among the youngest two or three generations there were many elves who were bitterly unhappy with the decision to return the Council of Elders to the control of a Moon elf. Tammson Amarillis, for all his talents, would not have an easy road ahead.
“The burden is no longer yours,” Ava reminded him. “You have ceded your place to Tammson.”
“I know. But even with Arvandor ahead, it is not an easy thing to leave Evermeet,” he said ruefully.
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