The Wars of the Lance are still to happen in the future of this story. People scarcely believe in gods existing after the recent Cataclysm. Tanis the Half-Elf is little more than a small baby who unconsciously killed his mother while being born... and Flint Fireforge is a small bearded baby. :) Others weren't even thought of.
But the strange evil has already commenced invading Krynn. The Cursed Temple rose out of the ground in Neraka and the Bloody Sea of Istar with its dreadful whirlpool in the middle has proven to be not only a trick of nature...
THE SEA ELVES
It is wrong to think that the eternal whirlpool in the midst of the Bloody Sea of Istar is the only whirlpool out there, no. Few mortals had seen the Whirlpool and those that have, aren't usually heard from again, so that can't be confirmed, but I know – we all know – there is more than one whirlpool in the Sea.
I was sitting on the sand warmed by the last rays of setting sun, and was looking at the Sea whose waves gently licked my bruised bare feet. My name was Jake at that time. I was born here, at this island, where unbelievably huge rocks are scraping the unbelievably blue, deep sky.
I feel good. I can simply sit and watch the sky and the Sea.
"Hi Jake," someone's shadow blocks the sun for a brief moment but I don't turn around to look – I know it is Altanne, it seems she adores chasing me...
"Hi," I grumble.
For a few moments there exists silence and she looks at me, and probably not exactly at me, because she finally breaks the wordlessness:
"Beautiful is the Sea today".
"It is ever beautiful," I agree and suddenly offer, "Sit. Let's watch it together."
"Shall we?" Altanne quietly takes a seat by me and we watch the raging Sea and waves crashing against a great rock protruding in the sky. From the rock's direction a soft and constant rumble comes towards us, it is one of the minor whirlpools, the Demon's Eye...
And as the time goes by, I suddenly catch myself looking at Altanne, at her sunburnt shoulders, ashen hair flowing in the wind; and she turns around, and we look at each other and I notice her eyes are deep and sad, not derisive and vitriolic, as I have always thought, and we slowly move towards each other and...
"OH BRIDEGROOM AND THE BRIDE," the mocking wail is heard behind us and a cloud of wet sand rushes to impair our vision and I manage to notice Altanne's eyes filling with silent tears...
I turn over to get the sight off my eyes and recognize Fat Qazar and his fellow bullies. I clamber at my feet and kick Qazar in the solar plexus – he is rendered breathless but soon regains his consciousness as well as fury and kicks me much heavier than I did and I fall down, getting sand in my mouth and in my eyes and in my nostrils...
Suddenly Qazar releases me from his strong grasp and I hear a long cry of pure suffering. Rubbing my sand-filled eyes I get to see a slim outline of one of the bullies, the friend of Qazar... who now is running pretty fast despite all his fat. The death cry abruptly ceases and the boy, who is now little more than a comfortably prepared piece of tasty meat, neatly serves as a sea monster's dinner. The monster was possibly attracted by the noise we made and his tentacles got the victim just right...
I grab Altanne by hand and we run.
* * *
Now I turned over 17 and she did, too. We were standing at the parapet and were looking at the starry sky and boundless Sea. I enjoy walking at the nights and Altanne loves that too, but this has commenced to be a little more dangerous than usual. I overheard strange rumors about the Cursed Temple rising out of nowhere in Neraka, but those gossips were usual in all times.
Anyway, the krakkens, huge crabs and electrical sharks have been appearing near the coast way too often, Paladine knows why, but there is no Paladine, there are no gods left on Krynn, not since the Cataclysm...
Some say it is related to the evil which has been invading the great continent of Ansalon, but we live on an island, it should not touch us! Should it?
That was why we were standing under the protection of the parapet, far from the water, and were keeping silence. I embraced her gently and...
"There they are," I heard a hoarse voice. Fat Qazar, who with years passing had turned ever fatter, was standing behind us, demonstratively playing with a long machete.
"Why, Tanne, what's so good in this lil' piggy fry? Come with us..."
A strong and sudden slap on the face broke the speech. The next moment Qazar moved onward to Altanne but I managed to catch him and we both fell on the ground. And I immediately felt a sharp searing pain in my chest.
...I was lying face up and a feeling of something heavy in lungs made me cough up some blood. My lungs were pierced with the machete. Ack.
I put much effort into doing it and finally succeeded to sit vertically. I was on a high rock... but that was not the safe one. In a few feet toward the edge, the rock ended in a steep cliff.
And in a few feet in the opposite direction stood Fat Qazar and all the company including pale-faced Altanne, my dear...
Qazar made a clumsy, welcoming gesture toward the edge.
"Still enjoy looking at the Sea, Jaky-boy?" he sneeringly asked. "Want to have a look at it from inside?"
He wasn't grinning anymore and his friends weren't, too.
Nobody yet escaped from the Demon's Eye. Although I heard a rumor, an odd gossip, that if you manage to fall directly in the pupil of the Eye, strange things might happen. Like as if the Demon blinked.
Bullies of Qazar carried me toward the edge. I choked a few times before I could get my lips form the words:
"Set me free. I'll do it myself!"
They were shocked so much they released me from their grasp. I sprang in the air, bending my injured, impaired but still obedient body. I was falling towards the Eye, the roaring whirlpool.
...I was being molten alive, but that was not painful at all, it seemed like as if I was being remade... If that was death, it was by far not the worst one.
I felt the gentle water pressure through which I was deftly gliding.
My body didn't lose its human proportions but somehow I was able to swim far more deftly and quicker than usual. I threw a quick glance over myself, able to see clearly through otherwise blurry water, which tasted of iodine and seaweed.
Sea elf? I am a sea elf? Or is it the last agony of my aching body? I never thought sea elves really existed. Nobody did.
The swimming was like flying. It so much resembled flying I could easily avoid clumsy tentacles of an enormous krakken.
A mad idea hit me. What if they...
The idea was abruptly interrupted by the thought of the one I had almost forgotten about. Altanne, there, at the rock!
The whirlpool was pretty close when I finally got to see her. "To see" is not the proper word but I can't describe the feeling. Something like "to see" with ears.
I also "saw" Fat Qazar standing there and talking something out loud. He finally finished his speech and attempted to hug the girl and kiss her with his fat, wet lips.
A second later he clumsily waved his hands, falling backwards, losing his balance and futilely trying to regain it.
His black jacket and her orange gown hung for a second above the cliff and then started falling almost slowly. And I knew, I knew with all my elfish knowledge that damn Qazar was going to fall directly into the pupil and Altanne...
Altanne!!!
I forced myself forward, thanking Gilean, Takhisis, Paladine and whoever I could think of for my non-human strength and non-human skills, and I did it, I did it, I sprang in the air and met Altanne's body and headed it directly toward the silent darkness of the Eye and dived head first after her, meeting with the eyes of Fat Qazar, eyes filled with horror he so generously used to treat us with...
In a few minutes and in a few miles away from the island, a sea elf and a sea elfess popped out of the greenish waves. To the west of them lay the great ocean with none-the-less great continent of Ansalon, to the east of them lay the Blood Sea of Istar with the rocky island, the island with screams of the seagulls and the magical whirlpool called the Demon's Eye, from the depth of which the slimey body of a great, fat krakken was slowly arising...