The undine laughed, a sound most strange in this watery place; yet Gord heard it plainly, as well as her voice saying, "Welcome to my home, hero. Will you linger here with me a spell?"
"No!" The reply came not from Gord, for the young adventurer was ready to agree. Leoceanius suddenly appeared beside him, and Gord became aware that the whole pride of sea cats was there in the grotto. The place was deceptively large, or else enchanted in some fashion. "We all, this man included, request sanctuary, Kharistylla. We will have no need to linger beyond the prescribed period for such."
"Request? Prescribed? My, my, Leoceanius, how formal your demand," the undine replied with a hint of mockery in her sweet contralto. "Yet I have no quarrel with Udyll. Why should I heed you?"
"Your power weaves a net of concealment about us now, undine," the huge sea cat rumbled. "You have already helped us, as I suspected you would graciously do, and thus cast your lot. But if she discovers what you have done, you know the hag would deal with the likes of you no more gently than with me... or this human who is her current prey."
The undine smiled, again showing her sharp teeth. Gord didn't find them quite so disturbing this time. "Agreed, great sea cat. I grant you sanctuary. Still," she said with a lingering appraisal of Gord, "I see no reason not to... detain... this man you carried here beyond the time the rest of you decide to leave."
"He is a champion of Balance," the monstrous sea lion rumbled. "Not even you would dare to disturb that!"
Kharistylla undulated closer, rested her hands on Gord's hips, and lightly caressed the thimble-sized container she found fastened to the right side of his belt. She smiled to herself, took Gord's hand, and spread it so as to reveal his palm. He noticed that her fingers were webbed, connected by a nearly transparent membrane. After the undine had studied it for a bit, she released his hand and stared into the young adventurer's eyes. That made his head reel, and Gord uttered an involuntary gasp, slamming the door on his thoughts at the invasion he sensed.
"Quick — quick and strongly barred, Gord. But not so fast that I didn't see," the undine said with a small smile. "You are Indeed what the sea cat claims, yet you are not entirely informed or willing. Come, then. Balance has others to spend their lives on behalf of its cause. You and I are much alike, and we both give due homage to the middle way. Be my champion and dwell here in Kharistylla's domain for a time."
Her voice was sweet and laden with promise. Gord's own voice was filled with regret as he replied. "If that were my rede, gracious lady, I would gladly tarry here with you for as long as it pleased you. It has ever been my fate, though, to be driven by storm and tempest to some strand that is not of my own choosing. Soon I must leave this element, somehow, to return to the world of air and earth. The ones who call me cannot be denied, but when I am done perhaps we can..."
The undine flashed him her strange smile and pressed a pearl of pale green into his hand, the same hand whose palm she had studied so carefully. "I think not, Gord-Dark-Destiny. Although I cannot discern your past nor see your future, my feelings tell me that this will be our only meeting. But who can say? I am not the arbiter of things. I am one who, as you, meets what comes."
The danger passes," growled Leoceanius. "Sooner than I would have thought, but good for us. While the hag is distracted, we must make haste."
"All well and good," said Kharistylla. "Swim away if you feel you must, but leave the human safe with me and protect yourselves by doing so. The hag will certainly ignore you if you go alone."
"Yes." countered the sea lion. "But we cannot preserve the Balance by abandoning our charge."
"Trust me." the undine said sweetly but firmly. "When the peril is entirely past, the one we both cherish will be free to go. And he does have a means of leaving without your aid — this I know."
That statement puzzled Gord, but he was in no position to argue. Better, he thought, to take his chances with the undine's claim than to endure another underwater ride on the back of Leoceanius.
The sea lion seemed to take Kharistylla's words for granted. Instead of contending with her further, the creature swam to his fellows and softly growled some instructions. Then he came back to Gord. "Fare thee well, prince," the sea lion grumbled warmly.
"Nay, my friend," Gord responded. "I am no prince. It was you who made the royal gesture, else I and my comrades should have been in the deep darkness by now. Fortune be with you and yours. Leoceanius."
The sea lion let out a rumble in reply, dipped his head in salute to Kharistylla, and then was gone.
"Do not concern yourself, Gord-My-Guest." the undine said reassuringly. "They will miss the hag. And now we have a brief time of safekeeping, so let us make what we can of it!"
Gord could not pass beyond the confines of the undine's grotto. Her enchantments kept them secure within it and enabled him to breathe its salty waters as easily as the sea lions had done. Now, thanks to the pearl given to him by Kharistylla, he was able to move, see, and feel just as the undine did within the grotto. It was a far more magnificent place than Gord had perceived. Its enchanted spaces went on for great distances in all directions, with chambers and secret gardens that even natives of the sea could not discern. Water sprites and saltwyrds were there in numbers to serve their mistress, and all forms of poisonous sea creatures — snakes, fish, and worse — were always hovering at the fringes of the place to guard against intrusion; possibly to prevent unwanted egress as well. Gord didn't care; he wouldn't go where he was not allowed and had no intention of forcing his way out of the place, either.
"It is your inner force which draws me," the beautiful sea spirit said. "You have such strength within you, such a raw energy and purpose. I do not have that, you know. Otherwise, I too would be opposing the hag and all of her ilk."
"I will share my energy with you, Kharistylla," the young adventurer volunteered with sincerity. His ingenuousness made the undine laugh in her rich, sensuous voice.
"Don't look hurt, dear lad. I meant no injury but am touched by so fine an offer. If only it were that easy. You are one of many forces, I a being of but one elemental power. My own energy is very great — far greater than yours, Gord, in certain, limited ways. Yet beyond this small place which is mine I weaken and become far less. No infusion can change that, else no undine would I be. Enough of this! Come, now, and let us enjoy all of the wonder of this grotto."
A while later Gord asked Kharistylla of events above the waters of the sea that covered them. "The storm has passed," she told him, "and ancient and ugly old Udyll gnashes her broken fangs and drives her packs of sharks hither and thither seeking aught. The little ship which bears your friends lies leagues and leagues away, never fear. A southerly breeze has come to counter the foul blast from the north, and that good zephyr drives the vessel beyond the hag's reach and into the waters of that place near to where you call home."
"Woolly Bay?"
"Ah, yes. I see from the pictures in your mind that is what you call the waters I spoke of. Without your force aboard the ship, Udyll cannot see it. She is in a terrible fury because you are nowhere. Soon I think she will give up her hunt and go to her masters to tell them you have passed beyond the ken of material and elemental spheres."
"How do you know all this?"
"Hags are the greatest of the evil elemental powers, Gord-My-Sweet, but undines are the greatest of the rest — those of Balance, as it were. My powers and dweomers are much stronger than any sea hag's, in most ways, and always so within my own domain. I can sense all that happens here in this sea and a good bit of the events in adjoining waters as well. Poor, stupid Udyll could not even pierce the net of my concealment of you when she was within a league of that which she sought!"
"She was that close to us?"
"Closer, even... but no matter. The time you may stay grows short now. I have gifted you, and we have exchanged forces to that extent which is permissible. Now, Gord, will you leave me some token of yourself?"
"I... I..." he stammered, trying to think of something suitable. All of the fine jewels and pretty tilings he had accumulated as a sea rover were aboard the Silver Seeker. What little he had with him seemed inappropriate for gifting. Then he recalled the secret magical coffer. Inside it was, among other things, a talisman that he had kept as a souvenir. He reached into his belt, slipped the tiny coffer out, and touched it so that it would open. He had no fear of the water, for despite its everpresence, no drop of it wetted his garments or actually touched his skin.
As the container unlocked itself, it grew. The undine laughed and clapped her hands as it expanded before her eyes into a lovely vessel of inlaid wood and ivory fully large enough to hold a small fortune in treasure. "I only wish I had placed my good mail shirt herein," Gord said ruefully as he viewed the interior. There were only a few small items inside, a battered old box being the largest. This was a relic from his childhood. He had never been able to fathom its secrets, but he was sure it was somehow something important to him. For the moment, he passed it over in favor of one of the smaller items.
"Here, Kharistylla," he said with feeling, "I give this to you." He picked up a little pouch of some exotic skin and withdrew from it an amber piece of cabo-chon form. Inside the golden oval was a spider.
That is lovely!" the undine exclaimed. "And it is a potent talisman too. How came you by such a piece?"
That is a long tale, dear lady of the sea, and one which by your own words we have no time for. Suffice to say that I gained it and kept it at great personal peril. For a time my liege lord, Rexfelis, made use of it — I paid it over to him by his demand for a favor. Then one day he simply restored it to me without a word of explanation. No matter, for now it is yours."
Kharistylla kissed him with her perfect, coral-red lips, then laughed. "I shall keep it and treasure it. Perhaps you do not realize it, but such a thing as this extends my power no small amount. With it, I can move upon the sphere of earth, metal, or wood. Better still, I can walk unhindered on the material plane for as long as I choose — even to dwell in a city among men such as you will pose no problem to me with this!"
Gord was happy that he had pleased the undine with the gift. "Perhaps we will then meet in Grey-hawk," he suggested.
Kharistylla gave him a sorrowful smile. "Nay, that I see not. Yet, perhaps somewhere... but there is more, dear Gord! Your Rexfelis is a deep one, he is. This he gave to you for a reason beyond mere generosity, I think. A single touch of your belt, earlier, told me that."
"What do you mean, Kharistylla?"
"The amulet will serve to open a portal for you to your liege lord's place. He bestowed such dweomer to it in most puissant form before returning it to you, that is clear."
"I will remember to thank him when I see him," Gord said dryly. "Now let us enjoy the last of the time remaining between us here." That the undine was most happy to agree to.
Chapter 2
THE FLANAESS SHOOK to the tread of marching armies. The land writhed under the lash of fire and sword, spell and conjured monster, as its creatures fled the bellow of iron horns and the boom of thundering drums. The hordes of the cambion Iuz were on the move, and their advance was as inexorable as the march of time.
The attack had begun abruptly, without warning. The masses of humanoids from the land of Iuz had swarmed forth to bring death and destruction to all who opposed the cambion. Their massing had been veiled by the great powers of Iggwilv, the mother of all black witches, and the demon queen Zuggtmoy. The two of them and Iuz controlled the evil magic of the Initiator, the middle portion of the Theorpart, one of the keys to the loosing of all wickedness, and they used it well.
The Vesve Forest was taken; then the lands beyond its western verge, all the way south to the Velverdyva River, fell to the invaders. From forest and mountains came swarms of evil creatures to join the victorious forces of the cambion. The great walls and men of the city of Chendl barred the advance into Furyondy's heartland, but the northern part of that kingdom was gone, and grinning orcs and slobbering gnolls roamed freely north of the Crystal River.
Legions of troops swept through the Horned Society, the lands that had formerly bowed to the Hierarchs, and into the Shield Lands. Not even the vaunted Knights of the Shield could prevail against the forces of Iuz, and the survivors among that number huddled on their fortress island in the Nyr Dyv, praying that the waters of that lake would protect them.
Far to the east the story was much the same. The haughty men of Tenh died bravely in defense of their country, but they died in vain, for bandits, mercenaries, and the newly allied warbands from the Barrens rode across the sovereign ducal state in mere weeks. Trolls from the fens and ogres and giants from the high mountains Joined in their destruction of that land.
Thereafter all of the north bowed fully to the cambion. Fierce horse nomads rode beneath the wolf-head standard to threaten their southern neighbor, while those who followed the great tiger banner made war in Iuz's vile name farther to the west. Fierce men of the Hold of Stonefist marched south to join the humanoids and the army of bandits threatening the Theocracy of the Pale. The demon armies held bridgeheads that were like swords poised above Urnst, stabbing Furyondy's flank, and the elven state of Highfolk.
The Flanaess reeled, and councils met. How could such a thing have occurred? What defense or counterattack could be made? Then the armies of the Great Kingdom in the south, and the Scarlet Brotherhood's disciplined regiments too, attacked northward. All thought of a counter of Tensive was hurled to the winds. Nyrond, its friends and allies, and the few other unconquered free states of the Flanaess knew that their survival now stood in question. The evil that served devils advanced northward in counter point to the demon-serving hordes that rolled south. All good was caught between these two, and there was growing despair in the land.