“Don’t be lighting that thing in here,” Hrolf cautioned him, pointedly ignoring the mate’s insinuations. “There’s enough of that newfangled smoke powder stored hereabouts to drop all of Ruathym into the sea!”
As Ibn tucked away his pipe and flint, he cast a measuring gaze around the warehouse. The building was stuffed with crates and kegs piled haphazardly together in no discernible order. “Good thing you know what all you got in here, Captain. No one else does, that’s certain.”
“Is that why you’ve come, lad?” Hrolf asked mildly. “To insult my girl and tell me how to run my affairs?”
“To warn you,” Ibn returned, returning the pirate’s cold gaze without flinching. “I was out with the fishing boats early this morning. Thought I saw a sea elf.”
“Xzorsh?” the captain asked, surprised by this news.
“Might’a been. They all look much the same to me. The morning’s catch was none too good. Some of the nets were cut. There’s mischief in the waters hereabouts, make no mistake.”
“What’re you saying, lad?” Hrolf demanded.
“Might be I wasn’t the only one to see the elf. If people start thinking your friend’s behind some of the recent troubles, might be they’ll come looking to you for answers.” The mate paused, and once again he turned a pointed gaze upon the drow. “Might be, Captain, that you should start thinking about what those answers could be.”
“Might be, lad,” Hrolf returned in a grim imitation of the first mate, “that you should haul your sorry ass out of my warehouse before I kick it up between your shoulders.”
Ibn shrugged. “We been sailing together a long time, Captain. Thought I owed you the warning—do with it what you want.” With those words, he spun on his heel and stalked out of the warehouse.
“That one’s no friend of yours, lass,” Hrolf cautioned Liriel. “I’ve always liked Ibn—as much as he’ll let me, at any rate—but he does take on some strange moods from time to time. Mark me: he bears some watching.”
This warning rang through Liriel’s mind as she made her way to the long wooden building that housed Ruathym’s stolen literary treasures. She hadn’t spared a thought to Ibn since making land the day before, and that realization troubled her. No drow survived long by ignoring an enemy. And the sheer number and variety of these, she mused darkly, was making it difficult for her to keep up!
By the time the late afternoon sun cast long shadows over the village, Liriel had a somewhat better idea of what she faced. She’d searched the Green Room for every scrap of information she could find about the elemental plane of water. Since one of her unknown enemies had the ability to summon a water elemental, it made sense to learn what she could of such powers. The more the drow read, the more impressed she became with her shadowy foe and the forces he or she might command. One passage in particular seized her attention, fascinating in its implications—and its possibilities.
“Nereids,” she read aloud. “Shapeshifting beings from the elemental plane of water, they live to trick and drown unwary sailors. Often taking the form of beautiful women, they cast a charm over men and lure them to their doom. A nereid carries a soul-shawl that contains its essence. If this shawl is taken, the creature is enslaved by the possessor. A wizard can coerce an enslaved nereid to do his bidding, even force it to act as a guide to the elemental plane of water.”
“Legend,” observed a terse, deep voice. “A skald’s tale and nothing more.”
Liriel lifted her eyes from the book to regard the village shaman. She was impressed. Ulf was a large man, but she hadn’t heard him enter the room.
“More than legend,” she said bluntly. “I think I might have seen one myself, just this morning, walking along the shore with some man. At the time I thought something about the female was wrong, but I did not know until this minute the truth of it.”
Ulf looked skeptical. “If this is so, what became of the man? The tales say nereids charm men to drown them, but no one has turned up missing this day.”
The drow shrugged, admitting the point but not willing to abandon her theory just yet. She twisted the silver ring that her sea-ogre abductors had placed on her hand. If the unexplained drownings were indeed due to sea sirens, it might be a good idea to give Fyodor her ring of water-breathing. Men, it seemed, were far more susceptible to the charms of such a creature than were females. Naturally.
“Why have you come here?” the shaman demanded with typical Northman candor. “What do you hope to find on Ruathym?”
“All that Hrolf and Fyodor have said of me is true,” Liriel said. “I came on a rune quest, and when the rune is complete, I will use the Windwalker’s magic to carve it onto Yggsdrasil’s Child.”
Ulf scoffed. “Do you know the rituals of casting? Can you so much as find the sacred tree?”
“Show me.”
“I will not teach you,” the shaman stated bluntly. “It cannot be done. No frail elf has the strength or the will needed to shape a rune.”
Liriel bristled. “You speak without knowledge. Name a challenge. If I fail—and I will not—then you may claim to know the measure of my strength!”
A spark of interest kindled in the shaman’s cold blue eyes. “You are willing; that much can be said for you. But no, I will not name a test. If your rune quest is a true one, your needed trials will come to you as they must.”
“And when I succeed, you will teach me?” Liriel demanded.
“You have not yet succeeded,” Ulf said coolly, “and I have little faith you will. There is always a price to be paid for a new rune, a price far higher than most are willing to pay.”
Before the drow could respond, the wooden door of the library was flung open and a yellow-haired youth ran into the room. Liriel recognized Ivar, one of the young men who had accompanied her and Fyodor to Inthar. His tunic was stained with blood, and his eyes were wild in his beardless face.
“You must come!” Ivar said urgently, tugging at the shaman’s sleeve. “The hunters! Some are dead, and Aumark Lithyl—”
“The First Axe was slain? How?” demanded Ulf.
“No, he yet lives, but needs tending. A wild boar came upon us near the ravine. Aumark was gored, and badly.”
The shaman’s face turned grim, and he swiftly followed the lad, the curious drow close on his heels. A crowd had gathered around the door of a round wooden hut, but parted at once to allow the shaman through. Liriel hesitated, then pushed her way in behind him. She reasoned the shaman had more important matters on his mind than shooing her away, and she took a place against the rounded wall where she might observe.
The wounded chieftain lay in a rapidly spreading circle of blood. There was a deep gash in his side where the boar’s tusks had slashed him. Ulf chanted as he bandaged the wound with soft cloths and smeared a paste of herbs on the surrounding skin. He threw yet more herbs onto the fire; at once the room was filled with fragrant smoke. Liriel noticed with interest that there was a subtle magic in the herbs, the scented steam, and the words of the chant. But Aumark’s wound was deep, and the magic of the Northlands would not staunch the flow of blood in time. Already the thick dressing had turned crimson.
The drow came to crouch beside the laboring shaman. “Let me,” she commanded. Ulf tensed, then yielded with a terse nod.
Liriel tore aside the dressing and placed one slim black hand over the gaping wound, the other on her amulet of Lloth. She closed her eyes, envisioning the fey darkness of her ancestral home—the stronghold of the Spider Queen—and then brought to mind the words of the clerical spell. And as she did, she frantically searched her imagination for something to offer the dark goddess in exchange for the gift of healing she was about to request. Lloth, the chaotic deity of the evil drow, would have no interest in a human warrior unless she, Liriel, could give one.
“Conflict is coming to this land,” Liriel murmured, praying aloud in the drow tongue. “I sense this, though I do not yet know the names of all those who will fight. Heal this battle chieftain, and I will stand
with him in battle and fight as a priestess of Lloth. The drow pursued a surface war and lost. But let this war be fought in your name and won, that those who live under the sun’s light may know at last the true power of Lloth!”
The amulet in her hand tingled with fey power, and Liriel knew she had piqued the interest of the proud and capricious goddess. Quickly she chanted the words to the clerical prayer, steeling herself as dark magic coursed through her and into the still, pale form of the Ruathen chieftain. There was a searing hiss, and she felt the torn flesh beneath her hand knit together. Aumark’s body contorted briefly from the brutal healing, and then lay still.
Drained and dizzy, Liriel opened her eyes and slowly tapered off the stream of healing power. She noticed with relief that the chieftain’s breathing was deeper now, and the ruddy color was beginning to return to his weathered face.
“For what you have done, all of Ruathym is grateful,” the shaman said slowly. “I say truly that never have I seen such powerful healing magic. But still, I will not teach you.”
For a moment the drow merely stared at the man, utterly baffled by his stubborn refusal. Then with a quick, angry movement she rocked back onto her feet, rose, and stalked out of the hut. The villagers, some of whom had witnessed her feat of healing magic, fell back in awe as she passed.
Fyodor was also there, waiting for her. Belatedly the drow remembered that he, too, had been on the deadly hunt, and she tugged the silver ring from her hand. Taking one of his hands in hers, she slipped the ring onto his smallest finger. “Do not take this off,” she admonished him in a low voice. “Your life may well depend upon wearing it.”
He responded with a wry smile. “It seems that you, too, have been busy. Come, little raven—we must talk.”
The two friends left the village and made their way westward along the shore, wrapped in their cloaks against the chill of the coming night. Fyodor was clearly troubled, but he did not speak until the sunset colors had faded nearly to silver. Then, abruptly, he asked the drow if she had told anyone of that morning’s attack.
Liriel blinked. “Just Hrolf. If he has spoken of it to another, I know not. Why?”
“The boar that gored Aumark,” Fyodor began. “It might have been a natural beast, but I doubt this. I have hunted wild boar in Rashemen. Always they are dangerous, but this one was canny beyond belief. I would swear that it lay in wait for us, as if it knew the path the hunters would take. And I saw something,” he added, giving the word the emphasis that indicated he spoke of the fey Sight of his Rashemaar heritage. “There was something familiar about the boar. It was—it was as if the beast cast a shadow other than its own, one whose shape I could not quite make out. I felt much the same thing when we faced the hawk.”
“So?”
“Hamfariggen,” he said grimly. “I fear the hawk and the boar were two forms taken by the same man.”
“Wedigar,” Liriel breathed, nodding as she added this piece to the puzzle taking shape in her mind. “Yes, that would explain many things! The attacks on the hunters, even the missing children.”
“But why?” Fyodor demanded. “Why would such a man attack his own?”
The drow cast a sidelong glance at the young berserker. He was not going to like what he was about to hear. “Like you, he does not choose,” she said bluntly, and then she told him what she’d learned about the nereid, and her suspicion that such a creature might have cast a charm over the Ruathen shapeshifter.
Fyodor stared at her, appalled by the possibilities. “You are certain?”
“No,” Liriel admitted, leveling a challenging gaze up at her friend. “But I think I know of a way we could find out.”
Moonlight touched the sea with silver fingers and cast a pale, luminous glow over the rock-strewn shore. It was the sort of night that Sune, goddess of love, might have fashioned especially with trysts in mind, yet Fyodor wandered silent and alone at the water’s edge.
Then a faint song, like that of someone singing softly for her own pleasure, came to him on the wind. The young Rashemi paused to listen, entranced by the artless beauty of the song. Quietly he made his way around a tall pile of dark rocks, rounding a point that curved in to form a small cove.
The singer stood on a large rock at the very edge of the sea, looking out over the water and singing softly in a language Fyodor did not recognize. She was a young woman, fair-haired like a Northwoman but more delicate—nearly as slim and small as an elf. Very beautiful she was, with pale skin that glowed like pearl in the moonlight and soft ripples of gold hair flowing free over her shoulders. She started like a fawn when she caught sight of Fyodor and lost her footing on the wet rocks.
Fyodor instinctively darted forward to catch her as she tumbled from her perch. For a moment, the golden singer filled his arms, and the dull ache the warrior always carried with him was forgotten. She drew away—too soon!—her hands nervously smoothing the white shawl knotted about her waist.
“Do not fear me, lady,” he said softly. “Your song drew me, but I have no wish to harm you or even to disturb your solitude. If you wish, I will leave you.”
A slow smile came to her face. “You are kind,” she said in a shy, sweet voice. “In truth, I would welcome your company—indeed, would you be willing to see me safely home? I was lost in the song and did not realize until just now how dark the night has become.”
The last words were spoken with an odd mixture of apprehension and innocent flirtation. Fyodor took the hand she offered him, steadying her as they made their way along the shore. The girl began to sing again as they walked, silvery music that melded with the moonlit waves until sea and sound were as one. Fyodor did not know exactly when it was that they stopped walking, or when the girl came again into his arms. His mind registered the soft caress of the waves lapping against them both and the sweet, salty taste of her lips on his. Or was it the sea? He did not know or care.
A shrill, anguished scream split the air and shattered Fyodor’s dreamlike haze. Cold assaulted him like a blow, and he saw with astonishment that he stood knee-deep in the icy waves. Not far away was Liriel, a grimly triumphant smile on her dark face and a white silk shawl fluttering like a victory banner in her hands. The golden singer knelt in the water before the drow, her hands outstretched beseechingly as she wept and pleaded for the return of her shawl.
Slowly the details of their plan returned to his benumbed mind, and Fyodor realized with intense chagrin how completely he had succumbed to the nereid’s charm. Had he truly been alone, the siren would have tried to drown him as she had no doubt slain the missing fisherfolk. Yet so beautiful was the nereid, so utterly human her appearance and so heartbreaking her distress, that Fyodor had a difficult time remembering she was a thing of evil. Liriel, however, had no such problem.
“Be still!” she hissed, brandishing the shawl in the weeping nereid’s face. “By this token, you are mine. Accept your servitude and remain in the sea—silent and unseen—until I have need of you.”
The nereid covered her face with her hands, wailing pitifully as she sank below the water, disappearing as she went.
Fyodor turned incredulous eyes upon the drow. “You will keep her enslaved?”
“Of course,” Liriel said casually. “You never know when a nereid might come in handy. Nice job, by the way, bringing her out into the water toward me. I wasn’t sure you would realize that I followed you in the water so as not to leave footprints in the sand.”
He hadn’t realized that, but he wisely decided to let the matter stand. Despite the success of their plan, he could not help but be dismayed, not only by the ease with which Liriel consigned the nereid to servitude, but also by her willingness to use the nereid’s services despite its evil nature.
“Come,” he said shortly. “We must speak to Wedigar at once.”
They found the First Axe of Holgerstead asleep in the room he and Fyodor shared in the Trelleborg barracks. Wedigar came awake quickly, with a warrior’s trained alertness. His eyes narrowed
in puzzlement when they settled on the Rashemi’s somber face and on the dark-elven female at his side.
“What is this, lad? It is unseemly to bring a woman into the Trelleborg!” he admonished Fyodor.
“Women are not the issue here. More exotic females seem to be the order of the day,” Liriel observed coldly as she pulled the shawl from her bag. “This belonged to your girlfriend. Look familiar to you?”
The warrior stared blankly at the length of fringed white silk, then up at Fyodor. “What is this about?” he demanded.
“Do you remember nothing about a golden-haired girl? Liriel thought she saw you walking with one along the shore,” he urged.
“The shaman’s daughter? What of it? You know I came to the village to court her.”
“Not Dagmar, but a magical creature,” Fyodor corrected him, “one who can charm a man so completely that he would gladly kill himself and, perhaps, others as well.”
Wedigar’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but he kept his control. “Explain yourself,” he said evenly.
“This morning, shortly after dawn, we returned from Inthar along the shore cliff. Liriel saw a man and a maid walking along the water’s edge. Not long after, we were attacked by a giant hawk, nearly the size of a man. It was not a natural hawk,” Fyodor said softly, “but a creature such as the ones you spoke of when you told me what form a hamfariggen fighter might take.”
“You are a stranger to this land,” the First Axe of Holgerstead said in a stiff voice, “and because you do not realize the insult in your words, I will not call challenge upon you.”
Liriel let out a soft, exasperated hiss. “Fine. Don’t. But you will explain this.” Before either man could react, she lunged at the warrior and seized the neck of his nightshirt with both hands. With a quick, sharp movement she tore the garment open to the waist.
Across the warrior’s chest, in a neat straight line, were four small, shallow puncture wounds. Below them was a large circle where the dark hair had been singed away and the skin raised in a large, red blister.
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