Fyodor was floored by this revelation—for never had he seen anyone go through such lengths to hide an honorable intent—and he was deeply touched by Liriel’s ill-concealed desire to please him. He closed the distance between them and took one of her hands in both his own. Her fingers were still icy cold; he began to chafe them gently as he considered his next words. There was much he wanted to say, but he was not sure any of it would make sense to the drow. Despite her convoluted mind and her delight in plots and intrigues, she had little understanding of the heart’s complexities.
The silence between them was long. Liriel cocked her head and peered up at him in mock astonishment. “You are thinking,” she accused him teasingly. “ ‘There are those who think, and those who dream,’ ” she said, quoting his own words back to him. “You’re not changing sides, are you?”
His answering smile was rueful. “No. Just dreaming, as usual.” He released her hand and turned to leave.
“Don’t go yet.” She sidled over to make room and patted the edge of the cot companionably.
Fyodor looked back over his shoulder. He let his eyes speak what was in his heart, but he kept a careful distance from her. “I am ever your friend,” he said quietly. “But sometimes, little raven, you expect too much of a man.”
Understanding flooded the drow’s face, then consternation. Once, briefly, they had been lovers. The unexpected, unfamiliar intimacy of the encounter had torn Liriel from her emotional moorings, leaving her confused and shaken. Such things were dangerous—indeed, forbidden!—among the drow, and she’d readily accepted Fyodor’s suggestion that they move beyond that interlude. The friendship between them was intense but difficult; they were still feeling their way through unfamiliar territory. Looking at her friend now, she realized that for him the matter was far from resolved. The thought both dismayed and intrigued her.
“Do you want to stay?” she asked bluntly.
Fyodor smiled gently into her stricken face. “Sleep well. I will see you next moonrise.” And with that he left, closing the cabin door carefully behind him.
A storm of emotions buffeted the capricious drow: relief, frustration, and then a surge of purely feminine pique. She snatched a knife from under her mattress and hurled it at the door. It bit deep into the wood, quivering hard enough to give off an audible, twanging hum. The drow rolled over and buried her head beneath her pillow to muffle the mocking sound.
“He could at least have said yes!” she muttered.
At first light, the Elfmaid sailed into the Korinn Archipelago, a scattering of small islands north of the Moonshaes. There was an air of anticipation about the ship that Fyodor noted and mistrusted. Hrolf was especially jolly, full to over-brimming with boisterous humor and badly sung ballads.
The young Rashemi liked Hrolf, more with each day that passed, for the captain had an enormous capacity for enjoyment that was both disarming and contagious. Hrolf took whatever life offered—be it a sudden squall, a drinking horn full of mead, or a tale of adventure—with pleasure and gusto. Unfortunately, he also took more than was his by legal right. It was difficult for Fyodor to reconcile his growing affection for Hrolf with the man’s fun-loving larceny, and he dreaded what might occur when they made land.
But the reception lavished upon the Elfmaid’s crew immediately put Fyodor’s mind to rest. It was late afternoon when they made port on Tetris, a small island of rolling green hills and rocky, windswept coasts. The dockmaster greeted Hrolf by name and urged him to hurry along to the festival. As the crew made their way through the village—a cluster of stone-and-thatch huts that lined the river on its meandering way to the sea—many villagers called out cheery greetings. A small, well-rounded woman with glad gray eyes and cheeks like ripe apples ran to meet Hrolf, her skirts flying and her arms outstretched in welcome. The captain caught her up, spinning her around with ease and then enfolding her in a bear hug.
“His woman,” explained Olvir, smiling indulgently as he nodded at the pair. He and Fyodor walked together, following the growing crowd that headed for the hills beyond the town. The two men had become good friends during the voyage, first trading tales of their homelands and then, slowly, confiding pieces of their own stories. From his boyhood Olvir had longed to be a skald, but he could not reconcile himself with the lower status that his warrior culture assigned to their bards. So he went to sea, seeking a fortune to appease his ambitions while collecting the stories that fed his spirit.
“You come to this island often?” Fyodor asked.
“Five, six times a year. ’Tis almost a home port!”
“Still, that seems too seldom for a man and woman as fond as those two.”
Olvir shrugged. “Moira will not leave the island, nor Hrolf the sea. They suit each other well; always are they glad to meet and content to part.”
The sailor went on to other matters, describing the festival that would take place that evening. The Ffolk here followed ways long abandoned on most of the islands, ancient rites and festivals attuned to the turning of the seasons. Their druid, a doddering old graybeard dressed in robes of an era long past, clung to the worship of ancient spirits of land and sea. Tonight the village would offer the yearly tribute to the river spirit and celebrate the coming of spring.
Fyodor stood with the villagers as the aged druid said his prayers and offered the yearly tribute into the waters: beautifully worked armbands, torques, and broaches of pure yellow gold. Fyodor was a little surprised to see that the pirates, too, stood by in reverent silence as the old man tossed a fortune in gold into the water.
Making the ritual more remarkable was the fact that Fyodor could perceive no magic about the place at all. Like many of his people, he had a touch of the Sight, and he was usually able to sense places of power. Here, he felt nothing. He resolved to ask Hrolf about this later.
With the setting of the sun, the ritual gave way to celebration. Hrolf and his men contributed several casks of their “stolen” mead. Bonfires dotted the hillsides, and around them the villagers and pirates danced to the music of reed flutes, drums, and small, plaintive pipes. Sooner than Fyodor expected, the frenzied, joyous pace of the festival gave way to pleasant languor. Some of the revelers crept away in pairs to seek the shadows beyond the flickering firelight. Those who remained danced and drank to exhaustion, then curled up near the fires and fell into contented slumber.
Taking advantage of the unexpected lull, Fyodor sought out Hrolf. The captain was seated in state upon a tree stump, his Moonshae wife on his lap and a large drinking horn in one hand. Hrolf roared out a greeting and pressed the horn upon the young man, insisting that he have his share. Fyodor drained the vessel—not a difficult task for one accustomed to the fiery jhuild of Rashemen—and then asked the captain about the day’s ritual, explaining his perception that no magic lingered in the river.
The pirate shrugged. “Place spirits are not so common as they once were, that’s true enough, but old ways die hard. And what’s the harm of it? The river waters their fields, carries their boats to the sea, and gives them fish. That is worth more than gold to them!”
“Well said,” Fyodor replied, pleasantly surprised by Hrolf’s insightful and tolerant answer. Even so, he did not credit these words as being the whole truth, and he said so.
Hrolf responded only with a wink and a shrug. He refilled the drinking horn from the mead cask and handed it to the young warrior. “For a dreamer, lad, you worry too much! Find the bottom of this one and see if that doesn’t steal your troubles!”
Liriel waited until well after midnight before leaving the ship. Although she agreed with Hrolf that the Ffolk might not take well to a drow’s presence on their island, she could not resist the temptation to see this new land with her own eyes. Acting on impulse, she dressed as if she were participating in the promised festival, putting on a gown of black silk she had bought in Skullport and taming the wild waves of her hair into an elaborate arrangement of coils and ringlets. The Windwalker amulet she hid beneath the
bodice of her gown, yielding the place of honor to a pendant Fyodor had given her: a smooth oval of glowing amber with a black spider in its heart. Thus garbed, she donned her piwafwi and crept, wrapped in invisibility, through the deserted village, making her way toward the dying bonfires on the hills beyond.
The drow had expected a festival; what she encountered more closely resembled a battlefield. Villagers and Ruathen alike were sprawled about like so many victims of a massacre, with one exception: the dead generally did not snore. The grating chorus resounding through the clearing bore vivid testimony to the evening’s overindulgence. Hrolf, in particular, set the air vibrating with his raucous blasts as he lay asleep on his back, his boots propped up on one of several empty mead casks.
The drow’s eyes narrowed as she studied the scene. She was frequently amazed at the odd weakness humans had for strong drink. There was not a drow alive who couldn’t drink three dwarves under the table, and even drow who overindulged could shake off the effects almost at will. Humans didn’t have that type of fortitude, and it seemed to her that those humans least able to handle potent drink had the strongest taste for it. Still, she didn’t see how so many humans could drink themselves into oblivion in such short order. Even Fyodor, who could swallow that wretched Rashemaar firewine without ill effect, had succumbed to the night’s revelry. He lay in deep slumber. A half-full drinking horn had been thrust point-down into the soft ground beside him.
Liriel crouched at Fyodor’s side and took up the drinking horn. She sniffed at the mead, caught the faint scent of the herbs that had been added to it. Since a knowledge of poisons was an important part of any dark elf’s education, Liriel recognized the scent of a harmless—but potent—sleeping potion.
She was not at all surprised, therefore, when an owl-like hoot came from the “sleeping” Hrolf. At this signal the pirates scrambled to their feet like so many puppets pulled by a single string. The effect was both eerie and comic. Liriel could not help but think of zombies arising from a battlefield in response to a wizard’s call.
The men stole down to the banks of a river. Wondering what Hrolf was up to now, Liriel crept along after the Ruathen. She watched, puzzled, as several of the younger men stripped to the skin and waded into the water. They dove repeatedly, coming up to toss small, shining items to their comrades on the banks. From their talk, Liriel pieced together the story of what had happened earlier that night and what was happening as she watched.
The sacrilege of this act of thievery troubled her, for no Underdark drow would dare to defile an offering to Lloth. From what she had learned since leaving Menzoberranzan, Liriel surmised that few deities were as vengeful as the Spider Queen. Still, it seemed a large risk to take for mere gold, and she decided to convince the pirates of their error.
Still invisible, Liriel walked among the men and watched as young Bjorn surfaced, a broad grin on his face. He waved a gold armband triumphantly overhead and then tossed it toward the shore. Liriel darted forward and caught the ornament, tucking it quickly beneath the folds of her piwafwi.
To the pirates, it appeared that the ornament had simply disappeared. They fell back from the invisible drow, bug-eyed with astonishment and fear.
“Captain, you said there was no river spirit!” a white-faced Olvir protested.
Bjorn was even more distressed. His thin hands fluttered like birds as he formed signs of warding, over and over. “May Tempus help us! We’ve angered their god!”
“We haven’t thus far!” Hrolf returned, unperturbed. “Think, lads. We’ve been harvesting the gold every spring for ten years, regular as a crop of rye. No, any spirit that might’ve made this river a home is long gone!”
“What, then?” demanded Ibn.
The captain winked at his first mate, then held out one hand, palm up, as he faced the apparently empty air. “Hand it over, lass. You’ll get your share later, same as us all.”
Liriel smothered a grin. Hrolf’s assurances to his men had put her mind at ease, and his quick-witted response to her prank pleased her. Still invisible, she tossed the bracelet to the captain. Its sudden reappearance dealt a second shock to the still-wary men. Then Bjorn figured out what was happening, and he began to chuckle. One by one, the Ruathen caught on. Not all of them, however, were amused by the joke.
“Damn female!” muttered Ibn as he turned back to the river. “Should ha’ known it was her at the first sign of trouble.”
By the time the sun rose, the gold had been safely stowed aboard ship and the pirates had resumed their places among the sleeping revelers. When finally the scene stirred to reluctant life, none of the Ffolk seemed to find anything amiss. The farewells between villagers and pirates were somewhat muted by the lingering effects of the mead, but Hrolf’s crew took their leave in friendly fashion, amid promises to return soon.
The pirates’ spirits returned in full once they were aboard the Elfmaid. Only Fyodor felt any ill effects from the mead, and although the young warrior was the target of much good-natured teasing, he felt too miserable to wonder why he was the only one so affected.
To Liriel’s chagrin, the Elfmaid did not head directly for Ruathym. Hrolf set course for Neverwinter, a coastal city some three hundred miles to the north. The Ruathen wished to trade some of their stolen gold for Neverwinter crafts, but there was another, more practical reason for the diversion as well. Neverwinter was named for its unusually warm climate and a harbor that remained free of ice year round. This was in part due to the River, a current of warm water and air that swept eastward from Evermeet, over the island of Gundarlun, and narrowing until it touched Neverwinter’s shores. So early in the spring, sailing the River was far safer than taking their chances against the ice floes that dotted the open sea. Hrolf planned to take to the River at Neverwinter, sail to Gundarlun to fish for spring herring, then travel due south to Ruathym. The expected profit was considerable, but this added time to the journey that Liriel had not considered. She had no idea how long the magic stored in the Windwalker might last, and she was anxious to reach Ruathym as soon as possible.
But the drow tried to make the best of the delay, using the time to study the book of sea magic and to add more spells to the Windwalker. Storytelling passed the time, too, and Liriel coaxed Hrolf and Olvir for information on their island home. As the days passed, she and Fyodor fell back into the comfortable routine of fellow travelers. Neither of them mentioned the moment that had passed between them in Hrolf’s cabin, but Liriel thought of it often. She suspected that Fyodor did, as well.
At last the ship reached Neverwinter. The Elfmaid was received at the port by an armed guard. But after the dockmaster saw a sample of the pirates’ golden treasure, she allowed the ship to dock—with the provision that Hrolf the Unruly remain under heavy guard on his own ship. It seemed that several taverns in Neverwinter had reason to remember the captain.
Liriel enjoyed exploring the city—walking at Fyodor’s side, cloaked in invisibility. To her fell the task of browsing through shops displaying the water clocks and multicolored lamps for which Neverwinter’s artisans were famed. Some of the stolen gold went to purchase a few of these treasures, which Hrolf would sell to wealthy Ruathen. It was a pleasant interlude, but the drow was not sorry when the Elfmaid put out to sea.
They sailed westward for two days before encountering another vessel in the warm waters of the River. Fyodor was on the forecastle taking a turn at watch when he saw it: a sturdy cog, leaning hard to the leeward, cutting through the water with almost reckless speed. He called an alert down to Hrolf, who was manning the rudder and regaling Liriel with stories of Ruathym.
“I know that ship,” Hrolf commented, peering at it through an eyeglass. “She carries seal hunters. On their way back home, they are, and in a hurry.”
His mustache lifted in a broad grin, and he winked at a pair of sailors lounging nearby. “Think of it, lads: a pallet of fine white fur. Now there’s a gift to brighten your woman’s eye and sweeten your welcome home!”
The captain scoffed. “What kind of fool do you take me for, lass? Think you that I’d risk turning a berserker’s wrath upon my own ship?”
Hrolf pointed at the approaching cog. “I know her captain. Name of Farlow, used to be a sell-sword. A good man, if you like ’em quick to fight, and he knows us as pirates! All we need do is sail close enough to give Captain Farlow a good look at us and let him think what he will! And once they attack,” Hrolf said slyly, “yon lad will stand with us, and at last we’ll see him at play! It’ll be an easy fight for the rest of us, by my reckoning!”
The captain’s reasoning proved prophetic. No sooner had he finished speaking than the cog changed course. The heavy ship hurtled toward the Ruathen vessel at ramming speed, bowsprit leveled at them like the lance of a jousting knight.
“Take your positions, lads!” roared the captain with undisguised glee.
Such attacks were expected and anticipated, and every man leaped to the role that had been assigned him. Harreldson dropped the sail and joined several others at the oars. The ship was smaller and lighter than the attacking cog—a single collision could send the Elfmaid to the bottom of the sea. In such attacks, she was best served by her ability to change course quickly and by the fighting strength of her crew.
Fyodor snatched a large wooden shield from its hook on the forecastle. Five other men did the same, kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder to form a shield wall. Five more sailors, armed with arrows and longbows, dove for cover behind the wall. Liriel took her place at Fyodor’s side, but her hands remained empty. If the need arose, she had more powerful weapons to hurl.
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