Elaine Cunningham - Evermeet - Island of Elves

"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.