第 16 页

The sounds that the winds brought her were just as exotic as the scents, and as enticing. She heard the low, hollow call of some unknown bird against a background chorus of repetitive, grating croaks that sounded faintly like Kharza's snoring. She crept toward the croaking sound, through a thick bed of those strange green ferns. Beyond was a pond, and the sound came from small green creatures sitting on broad leaves that floated on the water. The creatures looked a bit like fat, rounded lizards, and for many minutes Liriel was content to listen to their song. In the Underdark, lizards did not sing.

Beyond the pond was a forest, a vast jumble of plants that was a little like the groves of giant mushrooms that grew here and there in the Underdark. This one was filled not with fungi, but with tall green plants. She had seen something like these plants in her book, a rough sketch that illustrated a myth called "The Tree of Yggsdrasil." Those plants, then, must be trees.

Liriel hurriedly skirted the pond to examine one of the trees more closely. She stroked its rough skin, then plucked one of the leaves and crushed it between her fingers so she might breathe its scent.

Everywhere she looked was green, bright and vivid in the brilliant light of the rising moon. The vision in her scrying bowl had not fully prepared her for that. Green was the rarest color in the Underdark, and here there were so many varieties of green that the single word did not begin to cover all the shades and nuances. Liriel wandered deeper into the grove, touching this tree and that, exploring the scents and textures and colors of the forest. Then, with a soft cry of delight, she bent to pick up a small, familiar object.

It was an acorn, an oft-used design in her new lore book. She stood and examined the leaves of the tree just above. Yes, the shape was right. This, then, must be an oak, the tree mentioned so often in the rune magic of the ancient Rus.

On impulse, Liriel climbed into the oak tree's arms and scrambled up as high as she could go. Finding a comfortable perch, she leaned back and gazed out over the pond below and the bills beyond. It was a wonderful thing, this tree. She could see why rune magic used the oak tree's power to aid in healing. There was a grandeur and mystery to this tree she had never seen in Underdark plants, not even the largest wild mushrooms. She thought of myconids, rare sentient mushroom-people taller than drow, and she wondered what manner of tree-creatures might dwell in this wondrous forest.

Then the scent of smoke came to her on the dancing wind, and the rich smell of roasting meat. Liriel had almost forgotten Kharza-kzad's insistence that she use a gate enspelled to seek out a drow encampment. The smoke, she supposed, must come from such a camp.

She knew she should show herself to the drow strangers immediately, before they sensed her presence and launched an attack. On the other hand, the scent of roasting meat alone did not signify she had found other People. Drow ate their food raw as often as they cooked it. She did not relish the idea of stumbling into the midst of humans or, even worse, faerie elves.

Then the music began, and Liriel knew at once the gate spell had worked as intended. The music was familiar, with an eerie, haunting melody and intricate layers of rhythm. The pure, silvery tone of the pipe was new to her, but the style was unmistakably drow.

Liriel climbed down from her oaken perch and crept through the too-green plants toward the inviting music. She paused at the edge of a small forest-cavern—a patch of open ground surrounded by trees—and gazed in wonder at the gathering before her.

There> whirling and leaping around a blazing campfire, danced a score of dark elf females. Four others hung back beyond the circle, playing silvery flutes and small drums. Without exception, the females were tall, and the muscles on their bare limbs were taut and long and powerful. Each had long, silvery hair that seemed to capture and hold the firelight. Apart from their height, these females looked just like the drow she knew in Menzoberranzan—slender, fey, achingly beautiful. They had no more concern for modesty than any of her peers, for they were clad only in scant, gossamer gowns that whirled about their legs like smoke.

The tallest of the females broke away from the group.

She stood, smiling, her hands outstretched in a gesture of welcome toward Liriel's hiding place.

"Join us, little sister," she called in the drow tongue.

Just those words, and then the dark elf whirled away to resume her ecstatic dancing. Liriel, poised for a fast retreat, paused to consider the invitation. If the strange female had approached her with conversation, Liriel would have been far more wary. These drow wanted merely to dance. After a moment of fierce internal debate, Liriel decided to join the moonlit revel.

She quickly stripped off her chain mail and weapons. Dancing while armed was not only an insult in drow society, but a hazard. A single knife wielded amid a throng of leaping, whirling drow could do considerable damage, and weapons were by law and custom left beyond the circle of a dance floor. Dancing was as close to an honorable truce as dark elves could come, and therefore Liriel did not fear these drow strangers as much as she might have under different circumstances. And though she left her weapons behind, she took her magic with her. She would be safe enough.

Clad only in her leggings and tunic, Liriel leaped into the circle of song and firelight. The other drow parted to make room for her, and she fell easily into the flow and pattern of the dance.

The moon rose slowly into the sky, casting long tree-shadows into the firelit clearing. At last, the music ended and the dark elves whirled the dance to a finish. The tall female who had summoned Liriel came forward and dropped to one knee—a gesture that in Menzoberranzan signified surrender. Since Liriel was alone and this powerful-looking female was surrounded fay a score of comrades, the Baenre girl took it to be an offer of peace. She accepted the gesture with her own: both hands held out, palms up, to show she held no weapons.

The strange female rose, smiling. "I am Ysolde Veladorn. These are my friends and fellow priestesses. Our campfire is yours, for as long as you would like to share it. From whence, if I may ask, have you come?"

This was strange behavior for priestesses, but Liriel was not inclined to point this out. "I am Liriel of House Baenre, first bouse of Menzoberranzan," she said.

That announcement was usually received with a mixture of fear and respect. A strange emotion—compassion, perhaps?—crossed Ysolde's dark face. "You have traveled far," she observed. "Would you sit with us awhile, and share our meal?"

Liriel glanced toward the campfire. One of the dark elves had taken up a harp—an instrument rare in the Underdark—and was playing softly. The other females were lounging about, laughing easily and passing around portions of the roast meat. There was a comfortable, unguarded air about these drow that Liriel found odd but strangely appealing.

"I will stay," she agreed, and then added, "Of course, I will pay for the food."

Ysolde smiled and shook her head. "That is not needed. In honor of our goddess, we share what we have with travelers."

That custom is new to me," Liriel observed, as she followed the tall drow to the fire. "But then, I just started at the Academy."

One of the other females, a shorter, slimmer version of Ysolde, lifted her head suddenly from her meal. "Not Arach-

Tinilith?"

Liriel nodded and accepted a skewer of roasted meat and mushrooms. "You know of it?"

The drow exchanged glances. "We have heard tales of Menzoberranzan," one of them said carefully. Liriel got the impression they would have liked to ask more, but Ysolde sent a calm, silencing gaze around the circle.

"Thank you for joining us in the ritual," the tall female said. "To have a stranger among us is a special offering to the goddess."

Fear knotted Liriel's throat, and she nearly choked on her first bite. Disbelief followed at once, quickly giving way to outrage. She threw aside her meal and leaped to her feet. "I might not be of your number, but you would not dare to offer a Baenre female to Lloth!" she snarled. "The ritual knife you raised to slay me would turn back against you!"

Every jaw dropped. Then, to Liriel's utter astonishment, the silver-haired females began to laugh.

Ysolde rose and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder. "We do not worship the Queen of Spiders. Our goddess is Eilistraee, the Dark Maiden, patron of song and swordcraft. The dance you joined was a ritual of praise to her!"

It was Liriel's turn to gape. In Menzoberranzan, rituals usually involved sacrifice of some sort. Prayers were chanted to Lloth and an occasional hymn intoned, but dancing was strictly for social events. The thought that dancing could be considered an act of worship was utterly amazing. Even more shocking was the concept that some drow worshiped another goddess. Which brought Liriel to the most basic and profoundly disturbing question of all: there was another goddess to worship?

Before Ysolde could continue, the sound of another musical instrument floated toward them from beyond the distant hills. It was a wind instrument, with a deep, haunting call unlike any Liriel had ever heard. The drow froze, listening.

"What is that?" Liriel demanded.

"The hunting horn of Eilistraee," the tall priestess replied. Her voice was hushed and her face rapt, attentive. All of the drow listened intently as the horn winded again, this time in a simple fragment of melody.

The dark elves exploded into action. They peeled off their gossamer robes and pulled on breeches and boots, tunics and deep-cowled cloaks. They strapped on weapons: swords as finely crafted and sharply honed as any Liriel had seen in Menzoberranzan, longbows many times the size of the tiny crossbows the Underdark drow used for their poison darts, and silver-tipped arrows as long as Liriel's arm. One of the drow doused the fire; another bundled up the discarded dancing gowns. An eager gleam shone in every eye as the drow prepared for battle.

Their excitement was contagious, and Liriel watched with a mixture of curiosity and envy. These strange drow were preparing for some grand adventure, here beneath the open sky.

"What is happening? Where are you going?"

"The hunting horn. It is the signal that someone nearby needs our aid," responded Ysolde. She paused in the act of strapping on a quiver of arrows and looked at the young drow. There will be battle. If you wish to join us, we would welcome another blade."

Daughter of the Drew

For a moment Liriel was tempted. She was intrigued by these draw, so different from any she knew, and she felt the call of the hunt. Yet wouldn't hunting with these silver-haired females, on the bidding of this upstart Eilistraee, be an insult to Lloth? And if the Spider Queen should turn against her, Baenre or not, there would be no place for her in Menzoberranzan,

Ysolde read the girl's answer in her hesitation and sent her an understanding smile. "Perhaps that is best. You do not yet understand what we do or what enemy we prepare to fight. But remember, a rightful place awaits you in the Lands Above. You may join us any time you wish, to live beneath the sun and dance in the moonlight."

And then the drow were gone, melting into the forest with as much stealth as any Underdark patrol.

Liriel stood alone for a long moment, breathing in long draughts of the crisp night air and letting the wind play against her heated skin. Perhaps she would come here again, but only to learn and observe. Fascinating though these strange priestesses might be, Liriel was not willing to relinquish her own goddess to join them, nor could she settle down in this remote forest-cavern. If ever she should come to the surface for any length of time, it would be to travel far on some grand adventure.

That thought came to mind unbidden, and it was as appealing as it was impossible. Liriel quickly thrust it aside. She gathered together her things and prepared for her return to Menzoberranzan.

The trip back to Spelltower Xorlarrin would be more complex than the one that brought her here. That spell, although extremely powerful, only worked one way. To return she could need to take a relay of gate spells. Magical travel was unreliable in the Underdark, for areas of strong magical radiation—like the grotto where Zz'Pzora made her lair—could distort spells and throw the traveler dangerously off track.

Liriel opened her spellbook to the first of the spells. This one, Kharza said, placed a gate somewhere in the series of open caverns near Dead Dragon Gorge, some six or seven days' travel from Menzoberranzan and very near a labyrinth of caves that lay near the surface. It was an easy site to reach by magical travel, for it had much open space and no radiation magic. From there she could find the site of a second gate that would bring her to the perimeter of the city. The final spell was more difficult, and the gate had a secret to ensnare the wizard who traveled to Spelltower Xorlarrin without Kharza-kzad's blessing.

She quickly spoke the words to the spell, and darkness enveloped her like a welcoming embrace. Liriel looked around at the Underdark, at the comfortable familiarity of the tunnels and caverns. For good or ill, she was home.

An eerie, high-pitched cry sounded, reverberating off the walls of a good-sized cavern somewhere up ahead. Other voices joined in a chorus of excited, wavering hoots and shrieks. From behind her, Liriel heard an answering call. She spun around, hand on the hilt of her short sword, as two narrow slits of bright light came swooping down toward her. The distinctive violet shade—the color of glowing amethysts—could mean only one thing: a dragazhar.

Liriel threw herself flat and rolled aside. A large form swept over her, close enough for her to feel the rush of air. Her eyes, still attuned to the bright lights of the midnight sky, slipped back fully into the heat-sensing spectrum. The dragazhar, or nighthunter, flapped by on velvet black wings like those of a giant bat. The creature had the long tapered head of a scurry rat, a whiplike tail tipped with a razor-sharp triangular spike, and long curving ears reminiscent of dragon horns. With a wingspan of some seven feet, the nighthunter was one of the most dangerous of all the Underdark bats. Liriel crouched, pulled several throwing knives from their hiding places, and waited for the creature's next pass.

The expected attack did not come, but sounds of battle—repeated dull thuds and the cries of the wheeling bats—came from the cavern ahead. Ten dragazhar, she guessed from the echoing calls, a full hunting pack. Seldom did they attack anything but small animals, but whatever they'd attacked this time was giving them a good fight.