第 20 页

"I am glad you returned tonight, little sister," she said in a joyful voice as she rose to greet Liriel. "We have another visitor, someone who is anxious to meet you."

Another drow rose to stand beside Ysolde. Liriel gasped, and the strange stories of the Time of Trouble became instantly, frighteningly real. It was whispered that Lloth had walked the streets of Menzoberranzan in the form of a tall, too-beautiful female drow. This strange female, then, could be none other than Eilistraee herself.

The drow stood fully six feet tall, and silvery radiance lingered about her like captured moonlight. Hair the color of spun silver spilled nearly to her feet, and her flowing robe flickered with its own light. Even her eyes were silver, larger than those of most drow and framed with thick, pale lash- es. Her skin was as dark as Jjriel's own, and it shone proudly black in the brightness that surrounded her.

Awed and fearful, Liriel sank to her knees. She had doubted any goddess but Lloth could exist, and now her unquestioning faith in the Spider Queen would mean her death. The young drow's hand crept up to the sacred symbol that hung about her neck. It marked her as a follower of Lloth, a novice priestess of the Lady of Chaos. In her homeland, those who called upon any deity but Lloth were summarily slain. She had little doubt what her fate would be at Eilistraee's hands.

Ysolde's smile faltered at the girl's strange reaction. Understanding came quickly, and consternation flooded her face. She darted forward and lifted the young drow to her feet. "Liriel, there is no need for fear. This is my mother, Qilue Veladorn. She is a priestess of the Dark Maiden, as are we all."

The tall drow smiled, and her silver eyes reassured the girl. 1 hear you are a traveler, Liriel Baenre. I, too, am far from my chosen home. Join us, if you would, and perhaps we wanderers can exchange stories of distant lands."

Liriel still felt dazed, but she was drawn in by the beautiful drow's warmth and charm, and she allowed Ysolde to lead her to the fireside. For a time she was content to sit, to sip her mug of hot spiced wine, and to listen as the other females talked. The priestesses treated Qilue with great deference, and they were full of questions about her work in the Promenade Temple. LirieFs natural curiosity did not allow her to remain silent for long.

"Where is this temple? Is it in the forest as well?"

Qilue smiled. "No. The Promenade lies near Skullport, a place that has precious little in common with this peaceful glade."

"Skullport," Liriel mused. The sound of it was intriguing, tantalizing the imagination with suggestions of dangerous adventure and the promise of the open sea. "Where is this place?"

"It is an underground city, much like your Menzoberranzan, and it lies hidden far below the great coastal city of Waterdeep. Most of Waterdeep's inhabitants know little about the lands beneath their feet, and not many venture into its depths. Of those who do, few survive. It is a dangerous, lawless place." Qilue's voice was grim, and her lovely face saddened as she spoke.

"If you feel that way, why do you stay there?" Liriel asked.

"We are needed," the priestess said simply.

That was too simple for Liriel to absorb. She had been raised to examine everything for layers of meaning and motive, and it seemed to her there must be something more to the situation than Qilue was admitting. Was Skullport like the Underdark, in that the drow could not remain away for long without losing their powers?

"Can't you cast magic on the surface?" she blurted out.

Qilue looked surprised. "Yes, of course. The Dark Maiden hears and answers her Chosen wherever they might be."

Liriel nodded thoughtfully. What the priestess spoke of was clerical magic, of course, which was much different from the innate power she herself had wielded since childhood. Still, it was something. She wondered if Lloth could hear her, so far from the chapels of Menzoberranzan. Her hand crept up to the Spider Queen's symbol, and she silently spoke the words of the clerical spell that would enable her to read the thoughts of this regal drow.

Not a glimpse came to her, not a whisper. The spell did not work; the prayer went unanswered. In the Lands of Light, she was truly alone.

She looked up to see Qilue's kind eyes upon her. "Ysolde tells me you are an accomplished wizard, with many gate spells at your command. So tell me, what is your next destination?"

"This will be my last trip to the surface for many years," Liriel admitted sadly. "I am not supposed to leave Arach-Tinilith until my training is complete. So far I've been lucky, but I would be caught sooner or later. My people, to put it mildly, would not approve."

"I see. And their approval is so important to you?"

"My survival is important to me," she returned bluntly.

Qilue was silent for a long moment. "You have other choices."

To dance in the moonlight," Liriel said bitterly. That is a fine thing, but then what? What of the dawn? I would be hated and hunted by every human and faerie elf under the sun, without even the simplest magic to shield me."

She gathered up a corner of herpiwafwi in her hand and shook the glittering cloak in Qilue's face. "Look at this: it dims by the moment. So far from the powers of the Underdark, its magic is fading. In my homeland, I can walk silent and invisible. Here I would be vulnerable, visible to all eyes. My weapons, my armor, my spell components—all would be melted by the sun."

"You would not be helpless," Ysolde put in. "You have a sword."

Liriel groaned and clasped the aching muscles of her sword arm. "Don't remind me! So what you're saying is that I would have to depend upon the least of my abilities for survival. Thank you, but no."

"You would learn new ways," Ysolde said.

That's what I'm afraid of!" Liriel said passionately. "You don't understand at all. / cannot abandon my heritage. I can't forget the drow culture, or lose my innate magic, or give up all I have learned through three decades of study in dark-elven wizardry! Perhaps that might seem like nothing more than a collection of customs and powers and spells to you, but it's what I am."

Qilue laid a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Let her be, Ysolde. We all must follow the path that is given us," she said in gentle rebuke. To Liriel she said, "You have come here to learn. Since your time with us is short, why don't you ask whatever questions you might have?"

The older female's forthright, considerate manner took Liriel by surprise. Never one to refuse an opportunity, she asked about Rashemen and the customs of the land.

"Rashemen lies far to the east of here," Qilue began. "It is ruled by Witches, wise women who wield a powerful, little-understood magic. One of my sisters studied among them for a time." She paused, and a slight smile curved her lips. "Many called her Witch, but few understood why."

The Witches of Rashemen would grant a drow such training?" Liriel asked in disbelief. "Are these humans utter fools?" In Menzoberranzan, magical secrets were carefully hoarded, grudgingly shared. This was not merely an issue of greed, but survival. Any weapon given to another drow would almost certainly be raised against the giver.

"They taught my sister," the priestess responded with careful emphasis, "knowing they had nothing to fear from her. What is your interest in this land?"

"In the Underdark I came upon a human male. He called himself Fyodor of Rashemen and told me he was on dajem-ma—a journey of exploration."

"That is their custom," Qilue agreed, "but I'm surprised one of them would venture Below. The people of Rashemen are generally fearless, but they do not throw away their lives." lfYou haven't met Fyodor, then," Liriel said dryly. "He seemed pretty determined to do just that. Tell me, do you know of a people called the Rus?"

The priestess accepted the quick change of subject without comment. "There was such a people, many centuries past. Over the years they mingled their blood with the folk of many lands, so much of their language and customs have been lost. The old ways are strongest on the island of Ruathym."

"Did the Rus go so far as Rashemen?"

The priestess considered. "I am no sage, but I seem to recall that long ago, before the forests and rivers of the Anauroch turned to dust, Rashemen was overrun and settled by a race of seagoing barbarians who traveled as far inland as the rivers allowed. I had never drawn a connection between the two, but now that I consider the matter I see the ancient magics of these two lands have much in common."

She held up a hand to forestall Uriel's next question. "Of these magics, I know little. All I know is this: both cultures are strongly linked to their lands. Both draw magic from special places of power, as well as the spirits that dwell there."

Liriel nodded. She knew all too well that the Underdark had its own sites of power. It was that, perhaps more than anything, that tethered her to the lands below, for her people's dark magic drew heavily on the strange radiations of the Underdark.

"The Witches rule their land, so they must remain within its borders," Liriel reasoned. "But what of the Rus, who traveled constantly? It seems unlikely they would leave such power behind."

"Of the Rus, I do not know," Qilue admitted. "From the old tales, I would guess most of those raiders depended on the sword and the axe rather than upon magic. But the Witches can and do travel, although infrequently. My sister spoke of a unique artifact, an ancient amulet that could store the magic of such places in the event the Witches needed to leave their land."

"An amulet," Liriel repeated, thinking of the tiny golden dagger she had glimpsed in Fyodor's mind. "Do you know what it looks like?*

"Oh, yes. My sister carried it for a time, many years ago. The Windwalker, she called it. It is a tiny dagger in a rune-carved sheath."

With great difficulty Liriel cloaked her excitement. "How does it work?" she asked as casually as she could.

"I do not know all the details," the older drow said. "Sylune—my sister—told me the amulet will store magic from places of power, but only temporarily. Few Witches leave their land for very long, so that is enough for them. But legend suggests the Windwalker can make such powers permanent. How, I do not know. The knowledge has been lost."

Maybe, maybe not, Liriel noted silently. Her nimble mind leaped from one possibility to another, weaving the disparate threads into a new and hitherto unsuspected whole. If the far-traveling Rus had settled Rashemen, the Windwalker could well have been of their making. If this were so, then rune magic was the key to the amulet's power. If the amulet Fyodor sought was indeed the Windwalker, then this ancient device was somewhere in the Underdark. If she could find it, perhaps she could adapt it to store her own magic. And why not? The draw's inherent magical powers, and the magic of most of their crafted items, were magnified by the radiations peculiar to the Underdark. Was that not a form of place magic?

If, and if again. There were far too many 'ife', but in her excitement Liriel was not discouraged. For the first time, her dream of travel and exploration in the Lands of Light seemed within her grasp. Some drow—such as these priestesses—might abandon their heritage and forsake the Lady of Chaos, but that was not an option for Liriel. She loved the wild beauty of the Underdark, and although she longed for adventure in the world beyond, she wanted to be able to return home. If she could find this amulet and test its powers, there might be a way for her to come to the surface whole, on her own terms: silent, unpredictable, mysterious, powerful, magical, deadly. Drow.

On impulse, Liriel reached forward and embraced the regal female. "I have to leave now, but I can't tell you what this visit has meant to me!"

Qilue regarded the girl's excited face and shining golden eyes for a long moment. "The Promenade Temple," she repeated softly. "Remember that name, if ever you should need it."

Chapter Eleven

FALSE TRAILS

Fleet and silent, Liriel ran through the forest back toward her magical gate. Her flight surprised a strange creature, a large dun-colored beast with enormous brown eyes and a pair of many-pronged horns. The animal bounded off and was soon lost among the trees. For just a moment Liriel paused to watch the graceful creature. Any other time, she would have followed it, perhaps to hunt, perhaps just to learn more about the strange and fascinating beast. Tonight a more important prize awaited her.

She had an idea where the Windwalker amulet might be, and her time to find it was short. Quickly she stepped into the gate that returned her to the Underdark. The magical flight was swift and brief, and it brought her near the place where she and the human had joined in fighting the deepbats.

Liriel retraced her steps to the glowing cave where she had met Fyodor of Rashemen. There was a mystery here, one that she must solve. She crouched down to examine the body of a deepbat the human had slain.

Even in death, the creature was imposing. The crumpled wings spanned a good seven feet, and the dagger-sharp fangs jutting from the deepbat's slack mouth were fully the length of her fingers. It was a marvel the human had managed to kill such a creature, but even stranger that the giant bats had attacked at all. Although they were dangerous in the extreme, dragazhar were highly intelligent creatures who rarely attacked anything larger and more threatening than a scurry rat. Something must have happened to embolden or threaten them, to force them beyond their normal behaviors.

Seizing the dragazhar's wing with both hands, she hauled the creature over onto its back so she might examine its underbelly. There she found the answer she sought. Scoring the creature's abdomen and legs were several long, thin cuts: the interweaving marks of twin blades. Such wounds were too fine, too precise, to have been inflicted by the human's dull blade. Draw steel had marked the dragazhar.

She examined the bodies of three other dead bats and found similar markings, including the telltale poison darts from a drow crossbow. These bats had most likely come across Fyodor as they fled from another, larger battle. After tangling with a band of drow fighters, a lone human must have seemed very easy prey.