This thought sent a tingle of excitement racing down the young sailor's spine. He had no thought of fear, for how could they fail? Kaymid knew a secret, a wonderful and dangerous secret that in his mind spelled certain victory. This adventure would climax in a glorious victory, and then he would claim his share of treasure and elven wenches. The battles that lay ahead would only whet his appetite for both.
"Soon," Kaymid murmured eagerly, remembering the tavern-told legends. According to those sailors who had survived such a voyage-which is to say, those who had turned back-the elven defenses began in earnest a fortnight's sail west of Nimbral. This time was nearly up.
Kaymid intently scanned the sea, his eyes seizing every detaiclass="underline" the long, flickering shadow that the ship's mast cast over the waves behind them, the leap and splash of a pair of dolphins at play, the sailor asleep on the deck below, his bald head pillowed on a coil of rope. Kaymid would see everything, miss nothing.
As if to mock his proud thoughts, an island leaped into view, appearing as suddenly as if it had been pulled from a wizard's bag. Beyond he saw a second island, and then another-there was a vast archipelago of them! And between the islands, jagged rocks thrust out of the sea like the tombstones of a thousand unwary ships.
"Danger! Danger, straight ahead!" Kaymid shouted down in a voice made shrill by sudden fear. "Land, rocky shoals!"
On the deck below, the captain waved acknowledgment and untied his spyglass from his belt, although more for protocol's sake than from any faith in young Kaymid's enthusiasms. Captain Blethis was the son of a sailor and grandson of a pirate. The sea sang in his blood; it had been his home for nearly all of his forty-odd years. He could read the patterns in the stars and the winds as well as any man alive. No, by his reckoning Rightful Place was hard out to sea and days from any shore. He'd stake his share of elven treasure on that.
Blethis raised the glass. He recoiled, blinked, then squinted intently at the image it revealed. Sure enough, there was land ahead, a barrier even more dangerous than young Kaymid's warning suggested. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun set the islands aflame: The patches of sand were the color of pale roses, the rocks a deadly garden of sunset reds and oranges.
"A coral reef so far north?" Blethis muttered in disbelief. Spinning on his heel, he roared to his crew to turn hard to the north.
"Belay those orders."
The words were softly spoken, yet some fey magic carried them to every corner of the ship. The deckhands hesitated at their work, torn between the danger ahead-now visible to them all-and their awe of the speaker.
A lithe, slender figure emerged from the hold, draped in a cloak against the chill winds and the sting of the sea spray. "Sail on," he said calmly, addressing the helmsman who stood frozen at the wheel. "There is no need to alter our course."
"No need?" Blethis echoed incredulously. "That coral can shear through ships faster than dwarven axes could slice cheese!"
"You yourself have pointed out the unlikelihood of such a coral reef in these cold waters," the cloaked figure replied. "It is merely an illusion."
The captain raised his glass for another look at the formidable barrier. "Looks solid enough. You're certain it's not?"
"Entirely certain. We sail on. Have the bosun relay the message to the other ships."
Captain Blethis balked, then shrugged and did as he was told. In doing so he risked all that he had-his position, his share of the plunder, his very life-but he suspected his imperious passenger had as much at stake and more.
Although captain of the vessel, Blethis was little more than a hired hand. The ship he commanded belonged to the elf-in fact, as far as Blethis could figure, all the ships in the fleet belonged to him.
The elf. It still amazed Blethis that an elf would lead an invasion force against his own kin. Although, come to think of it, men were quick enough to fight amongst themselves. It shouldn't surprise him to learn that elves weren't much different, but it did. There were several elves on this ship, for that matter, and more on several of the others. As far as Blethis could tell, they were all dead set upon overthrowing the ruling queen and taking over the island themselves. Which was fine with Blethis, since these particular elves were willing to share the spoils of war-and the glory of conquest-with their human allies.
Provided, of course, that any of them survived the voyage. The captain strode to the bow and watched in silence as the ship closed in on the coral reef. Some of the crew, trusting the evidence of their own eyes over the assurances of the mysterious elf lord, leaped over the rail to take their chances swimming ashore.
"Leave them," the elf commanded. "They will understand their folly soon enough, and the other ships will pick them up as they pass through."
Blethis nodded absently, his eyes fixed on the swiftly approaching rocks. Instinctively he braced himself for the first grating jolt of contact with the unseen coral shelf, but it did not come. Scarcely breathing, he stood tense and watchful as the helmsman steered the ship in a weaving course between the blood-colored rocks, touching none. Touching nothing. It was a feat of seamanship that Blethis would not have believed possible had he not witnessed it.
It was also effort wasted. In moments the first of the islands lay directly before them, a hopelessly rocky shore above which loomed a thick tangle of foliage. They were close enough to smell the thick, earthy scent of the loamy soil and the deep, complex perfume of growing things. A large insect flew soundlessly by. Blethis instinctively swatted and missed.
Suddenly a weird, undulating hoot pierced the tense silence, rolling out of the dense forest toward them in chilling waves. The call was quickly echoed by other creatures-large creatures, judging from the sound-whose trumpeting roars seemed thick with hungry anticipation.
Blethis shuddered. He'd heard such cries before, long ago, when his ship sailed too near the shores of Chult's jungles. If the elf was wrong, if the ship went aground on this brutal coastline, all of them were deader than day-old mackerel.
To the captain's astonishment and utter relief the ship passed through the cove and the rocks, flowing right into the "forest" beyond as easily as it might slice through mist. The colors of the coral formations and the lush green foliage played over the ship and the stunned sailors as they glided through the illusion.
Blethis held up one hand and regarded the shifting patterns upon it. He remembered a long-ago moment when as a child he had stood in the base of a rainbow and watched the colors splash over his bare feet. This barrier reef, for all its formidable appearance, was no more substantial than that rainbow.
"So much for Evermeet's defenses," he murmured.
The elf's only response was a thin smile.
"Storm ahead!" sang down the young watchman. "Coming this way, and coming fast!"
This time Blethis had no need to raise his glass. The storm swept toward them with preternatural speed. Scant moments after Kaymid sounded the alarm, angry purple clouds filled the sky and hurled lightning bolts at suddenly skittish waves.
A whirling cone descended from the clouds. More followed, until a score of them had touched down upon the sea. The water churned wildly as hungry clouds plundered the waves, and the funnels swiftly became darker and more powerful with the force of the swirling waters within. Like a pack of hunting wolves, the waterspouts began to circle the fleet.
"Tell me this is another illusion, elf," Blethis implored. "The storm is all too real," the elf said, pulling the folds of his cloak tighter about him. "Sail on."