Tangled Webs

by Elaine Cunningham

  “He had his doubts about me, of course, but he put them aside easily enough,” Dagmar said in an arch voice. “You must have been denying the poor man, to send him to me in such a state! I was only too happy to comfort him. After all, he was a fine figure of a man.”

  The woman’s cruel emphasis was not lost on Liriel, and the warmth drained from the drow’s face. “He is dead,” she murmured tonelessly. Grief would come later; she felt numbed to the soul.

  Dagmar sent her a mocking smile. “And now that he is gone, no Ruathen warrior will listen to any word you speak against me!”

  “But they will listen to me,” proclaimed a deep voice behind them.

  The two females whirled, identical expressions of consternation on their faces. So deep in conversation were they that neither had noted the approach of the red-bearded sailor. Ibn stood a few paces away, his massive arms folded across his chest and angry little puffs of smoke bursting from his pipe.

  But Ibn, like most men of Ruathym, had not reckoned with a woman like Dagmar. She darted at him, her long knife leaping toward his heart.

  Liriel seized one of the woman’s flying braids, dug in her heels, and held on. Dagmar’s head snapped back as her attack on Ibn came to an abrupt and unexpected halt. Before the woman’s startled curse left her lips, Liriel pivoted on one heel and lifted the other foot in a high, hard kick. Her booted foot connected with Dagmar’s kidney, and the woman let out a howl of pure anguish.

  The drow kicked out again, this time at the back of Dagmar’s legs; the Northwoman’s knees buckled and she went down. In three quick steps Liriel circled around to face her foe. On her knees, the much taller Dagmar was not far below the drow’s eye level, and Liriel held her pain-glazed stare for a long moment. Then she balled up her fist and drove it into the woman’s temple. Dagmar swayed but did not go down—in no small part because Liriel still held her grip on the woman’s braid. Holding the Northwoman upright by her own hair, the drow coldly dealt another blow, and then a third. At last Dagmar’s eyes rolled up in her head.

  It took all of Liriel’s self-control to refrain from beating the beautiful face into a bloody mask. She flung the unconscious woman to the ground and turned to face Ibn, ready to fight yet another battle if need be.

  But Ibn merely nodded and calmly took the pipe from his mouth. “You should have killed her,” he observed.

  “I wanted to,” Liriel said with fierce candor. “Fyodor would die anew were he to hear me say this, but that felt pretty damned good!”

  “Can see how it would,” Ibn agreed, scowling at the woman sprawled senseless at his feet. “The elf-loving bitch had it coming to her.”

  Liriel fell back a step. “I’ve missed something, haven’t I?” she inquired, not at all certain whether Ibn was to be counted a foe or an ally.

  “No less than I have,” he admitted grudgingly. “Might be that it’s time to settle the scores between us and lay things out plainlike.”

  The drow responded with a cautious nod.

  “To my way o’ thinking,” Ibn began, “Ruathym’s troubles came out o’ the sea. I had my eye on them sea elves, and you for taking up with ’em. Tried to warn Hrolf, but would he listen? So I’ve been watching for ’em since the day we came ashore. ’Twas no surprise when the fisherfolk netted those two. But then I saw one of them again, and Dagmar with him. I’ve been following the wench ever since—followed her up to Holgerstead, though I didn’t do much good for the folk there.”

  “So that’s why you went to Holgerstead,” Liriel mused. “I’m surprised you didn’t suspect she might poison the mead.”

  Ibn huffed and leveled an angry glare at the drow. “Don’t be starting down that path again!” His expression softened somewhat. “She was lying about your friend. The young First Axe was alive and well when I left the village.”

  Joy filled Liriel’s heart, and a smile like instant sunshine burst onto her face. Impulsively she threw her arms around the man in a quick, fierce hug. Before he recovered from the shock of it, she spun away into an ecstatic little dance.

  “Here, now,” Ibn protested. “There’s no call for that. I don’t like elves now any more than ever I did. And stop whirling around like a cider-drunk bee when there’s work to be done!”

  Together they sought out Fyodor, for only a warrior could call a Thing. When the village had gathered, Ibn told the council of the meeting he had witnessed between Dagmar and the long-haired sea elf, and of the damning words he had heard her speak to the drow. At Fyodor’s insistence, they allowed Liriel to speak. She told them of the three warships that had attacked the Elfmaid, and showed them the ring that had been taken from the severed hand of the leader—the ring that marked him as one of the five High Captains of Luskan. Aumark examined the ring and pronounced it genuine, and even admitted that he recognized the man from the drow’s description: Rethnor, an ambitious, black-bearded giant of a man who held even less love for Ruathym than most of his fellows.

  After a moment’s stunned silence, the men began to plan for the coming attack. Liriel was content to listen, for the Ruathen were no strangers to war, and the battle chieftains’ strategy was sufficient to meet the threat from Luskan. To the proud Northmen, Luskan was the true enemy, and the strange sea creatures merely tools. Defeat the Luskan ships in sea battle, they believed, and all else would fall into place.

  Liriel knew differently, for she herself had pledged to open the door that would allow the powers of Ascarle to invade the island—and that would enable her to free the slaves held captive in the underground stronghold. She could not seek Fyodor’s help, for she dared not expose him to the power she would have to channel before the portal could be opened.

  And so the drow left the warriors to their plans and made her way down to the cove. Again she called for Xzorsh. When the sea elf came to her summons, she described the submerged city and the forces she had seen within.

  “So Ascarle truly exists, and the merrow are based there,” the ranger murmured. “You are right; this danger must be eliminated. I will gather as many sea-elven warriors as I can muster—along with some triton volunteers, if such can be persuaded—and advance on the Purple Rocks at once!”

  “At least, that’s the word you’ll send through the Relay,” Liriel agreed. “Let the forces of Ascarle prepare for an assault from the sea beyond their city walls. Secretly, you will gather your forces by the shores of Inthar and await my word. I will send you through the portal into the city itself. But take care: if word of this gets to Sittl, all is lost.”

  Xzorsh still looked doubtful. “Perhaps you misunderstood what he said to the Northwoman.”

  The drow hissed in exasperation. “If you refuse to listen to reason, perhaps you’ll respond to a deal: keep the plan secret, and I will see that you get your magical training!”

  Joy flared briefly in the sea elf’s eyes; then a rueful smile crossed his face. “All my life I have waited to hear such words. Even so, I would give up this chance gladly to see you proved wrong. Sittl is a friend, and his trust is worth more to me than magic.”

  Liriel turned away, stung by the elf’s wistful words and his willingness to give up his dream rather than betray the values he held dear. Despite all that had happened to the drow and to those she loved, she knew that she herself would not do likewise.

  “Do as I say, and prepare for your battle,” she snarled, and as she walked away she added in a whisper too soft for the elf to hear, “and leave me to mine.”

  Before facing her deadly foe—and her even more dangerous ally—Liriel had one task to complete. She had stopped wearing the Windwalker amulet after the night she and Fyodor had spent at the foot of Yggsdrasil’s Child, for the artifact’s task had been completed even if the quest had not been fully realized. Her only ornament these days was the medallion that proclaimed her priestess of Lloth. Even the pendant that Fyodor had given her, the amber-encased spider, she had tucked away, for she did not wish to tempt the jealous goddess with even so small a compet
ition.

  But now she made her way to Ulf’s cottage to once again enchant the amulet with stored magic. She admonished the shaman’s family to leave her to her privacy, but this was hardly a needed precaution. News of Dagmar’s treachery and the girl’s subsequent imprisonment had bowed all of Ulf’s household under a heavy weight of shame, grief, and helpless frustration. Even Sanja’s scolding tongue was stilled as she struggled to accept that Ygraine—the daughter most favored and long presumed dead—lived in horrible captivity, and that the quiet and biddable Dagmar could harbor such deadly ambitions.

  Alone in the silence of the loft, Liriel took the Windwalker from its hiding place and opened the book of rune lore to a spell she had used previously to capture the magic of the Underdark in the amulet. Hours passed as she studied anew the difficult spell, adding to it the changes that would store, if temporarily, a very different type of magic. When at last all was ready, Liriel removed the tiny chisel from the sheath. As she chanted the words of the spell, she carefully poured a drop of Fyodor’s jhuild—the firewine used in the rituals that brought the battle frenzy upon Rashemen’s berserkers—into the sheath.

  Once before she had considered this spell. In an attempt to save Fyodor from a killing frenzy, Liriel had been willing to empty the Windwalker of her Underdark magic so his berserker wrath might be contained within. But she and Fyodor had fallen under attack before she could cast the spell. When he’d recovered from his battle wounds and learned what she had nearly done, he’d exacted a promise from her that she would never sacrifice her drow powers for him. And there the matter had remained.

  Until now. Liriel’s quest for power had been answered at the foot of Yggsdrasil’s Child, and she no longer needed the Windwalker to hold her innate drow magic. It was hers to command for as long as she might live. But she dared not carry the power of Fyodor’s berserker magic with her to her next battle, for fear it might be wrested from her hands.

  The spellcasting and the ritual took most of the night, but at last Liriel held the enchanted Windwalker in her hands, taking comfort from the captured power thrumming through the ancient gold. She tucked the amulet back into its hiding place—she could not give it to Fyodor just yet, for fear of alerting him to her purpose—and then she crept silently from the sleeping cottage.

  The drow made her way along the shore and then climbed the steep bluff that led to the ruins of Inthar. The ancient keep loomed overhead, secret and forbidding. As Liriel walked through the ruins, she murmured the words of a clerical prayer, one of the most powerful and deadly spells in a priestess’s arsenal. It was a prayer seldom granted, for few were the drow who were powerful enough to withstand it. It was a portal of a different sort, one that opened the priestess to the pure power of Lloth.

  It was the offer of her body and mind as avatar to the Queen of Chaos.

  This was a desperate measure, but Liriel saw no other choice. She had faced the banshee before, and she understood that only two things could defeat its restless spirit: a magic that could dispel evil, or an evil power greater than that of the undead drow. As a priestess of Lloth, she did not dare to dispel evil; all that was left for her to do was to channel it.

  And so the young drow sank ever deeper into the source of her darkest power. The Spider Queen looked kindly upon the prayer of her young priestess, for it pleased the goddess to reclaim the spirit of the ancient drow who had, in banshee form, eluded fate for many centuries. Through Liriel, Lloth would wrest the banshee from the portal and spirit it away to its long overdue reward in the Abyss, and the portal would be at last be open.

  Yet as the dark power of Lloth gathered and welled up within her, Liriel knew not triumph, but a deep and profound sense of loss.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE POWERS OF DARKNESS

  For almost two days Fyodor watched over Liriel as she lay in a deathlike slumber. He did not know what had befallen the drow but suspected she’d been overcome by the banshee they’d encountered before. He’d searched for hours, finally finding the print of Liriel’s elven boots on the shore near Inthar and tracking her to the tower where the banshee held sway. He’d found the young drow inside, draped limply, like a discarded garment, over the wall of the fountain, and carried her back to Ulf’s cottage. But what had prompted the drow to come alone to this fell place, Fyodor could not say.

  He had left her side seldom, despite the urging of the shaman and the scolding of the man’s formidable wife. Yes, there were other matters demanding the attention of Holgerstead’s First Axe, but the young warrior knew where lay his first loyalty. He was pledged to protect the drow wychlaran; he was bound to her with a web woven from the combined magics of the Underdark and Rashemen. But underlying that was something deeper still. And so the joy that flooded his heart when at last Liriel stirred and woke was not, first and foremost, that of a knight for his sworn lady.

  The drow’s lips formed a request; Fyodor reached for a cup of water and held her head while she drank. She struggled visibly to shake off the deadly lethargy, like a butterfly breaking free of an entangling cocoon. But her eyes, as she focused on her friend’s concerned face, were clear and set with purpose.

  “How long have I slept? When is moondark?”

  Fyodor blinked, astonished anew by the drow’s resilience. “Tomorrow night,” he said absently. “Little raven, what happened to you?”

  The drow brushed aside his questions and pulled herself to a sitting position. “The preparations for battle?”

  “All is well. The ships are armed, the men ready.”

  “Good. The attack will come tomorrow, probably at dusk. I cannot be with you, so you must take this.”

  Liriel took the Windwalker from beneath her mattress and pressed it into his hand. “Before … before you found me, I enspelled the amulet to hold power over your battle rages. Wear this, and command yourself.”

  “And you?” he asked, his eyes searching hers.

  “I am needed elsewhere,” she said softly. “Take me back to Inthar, that I might summon the nereid again.”

  Understanding and dread came to Fyodor in a quick, sweeping wave. “You cannot return to Ascarle after all you have endured! You are not ready!”

  “You have no idea what I have endured, and for that you may thank the gods,” she said with uncharacteristic fervor. “As to being ready or not, I doubt the battle will wait for me or any other. If you will not help me to Inthar, I’ll go alone.”

  And so the pledged warrior called for food to be brought, and water for washing. He waited until Liriel had readied herself, then he supported her steps until she gained the strength to walk alone.

  There were few horses on Ruathym, but as First Axe of Holgerstead, Fyodor could claim any animal in the village stables. He chose two swift mounts, and the companions made their way with all possible haste to Inthar.

  When they neared the ruins, Liriel dismounted and walked alone to the very edge of the steep cliff. A strong wind blew in from the sea, whipping her white hair and her glittering cloak behind her as she cupped her hands to her mouth and sent a long, high cry ringing out over the waves. Then she caught at the flying folds of her cape and wrapped them tightly around her. The drow turned back to Fyodor, and for a moment her golden eyes burned into his.

  Then she was gone.

  Fyodor shook the reins sharply over his horse’s neck and urged the skittish beast forward to pace along the very edge of the cliff. He could see no sign of Liriel’s passing; she had vanished as completely as a forgotten dream. Yet as the young man’s frustrated gaze settled on the sea beyond, he understood what the drow was about.

  Slipping quietly from the waves was a small army of sea folk. Fyodor recognized Xzorsh by his short-cropped green hair. Behind the ranger were perhaps a hundred sea elves, and a score or so of strange, silver-green beings, manlike but for the legs that ended in flippers rather than feet. These picked their way carefully among the rocks, heading for the ruins of Inthar.

  Fyodor suddenl
y realized that the banshee’s cry had been silenced. The portal the creature had spoken of, through which no living thing could pass, must have somehow been opened. Liriel meant to lead this army into Ascarle and stop the attack before it could come to Ruathym’s shores.

  Despite the fear in his heart, Fyodor reined his horse about and headed for Ruathym village, where the berserker warriors of Holgerstead awaited his orders. Liriel had her command; he had his.

  Liriel dashed the water from her eyes and climbed from the pool in the council chamber. The familiar figure standing before her stunned her into immobility—the round, dark face, the malevolent crimson eyes, the ubiquitous pitchfork. There were many things Liriel missed about her home in Menzoberranzan. Shakti Hunzrin, her former classmate and self-avowed rival, was not one of them.

  The priestess advanced, her hand on the handle of a snake-headed whip. The enspelled reptiles rose from among the folds of her gown, writhing in anticipation.

  “So you made high priestess,” Liriel commented dryly. “Menzoberranzan must be in a sorry state, that the priestesshood has fallen to such depths.”

  “Things have changed. I wield powers that you could not begin to imagine,” Shakti boasted as she drew near.

  Liriel responded with a delicate yawn, patting her fingertips to her lips. As she expected, Shakti was so enraged by this contemptuous gesture that she failed to note Liriel’s other hand lifting to grip the obsidian medallion hanging over her heart.

  Shrieking with fury, the drow traitor-priestess drew back her arm and lashed forward viciously. But the flailing snake heads came up short, splatting wetly against an invisible wall. All five slid down the unseen barrier—leaving trails of gore as they went—to fall limp at Shakti’s feet. The drow stared at the dead snakes for a moment, then lifted incredulous eyes to Liriel’s face.