Windwalker

by Elaine Cunningham

  Xzorsh’s lips twitched, but he inclined his head to the captain in a dignified bow. “If that is your wish, I will return to the sea as soon as my business is completed.” His gaze shifted to the drow.

  Ibn noted this, and his eyes shouted reluctance and distrust, but his men had been Hrolf’s men, and many of them owed their lives several times over to these mismatched elves. “Make it short,” he said grudgingly.

  Liriel sent a look toward Fyodor, and the three friends withdrew to the far side of the ship. Xzorsh shrugged a sealskin bag off his shoulder and took from it a tightly rolled tapestry. The drow’s heart leaped and fell in a painful thud. She did not need to unroll the tapestry to know what it was: a beautifully crafted horror depicting the torture of captured sea elves. What made the tapestry even worse was the knowledge that it was more than just a twisted piece of art. The spirits of the slain elves had been trapped within the threads.

  “None of your priestesses could free them? Or priests?” she added as an afterthought, recalling that surface elves didn’t limit themselves to an exclusively female clergy.

  Xzorsh shook his head. “This is a thing born of dark magic, something foreign to our sea-elven gods. It must be undone as it was made.”

  A great weight seemed to settle in the pit of Liriel’s stomach. Darkness was her native element. Who better to unravel the tapestry’s mystery than she? Still, the prospect of delving into this vile magic chilled her, as did the choice it implied.

  She glanced at Fyodor. He nodded slightly to indicate he understood her dilemma. If she had the power to do good, was she obligated to do so even if it meant trafficking with evil? Liriel had dared to hope that the need for such decisions had been left behind on Ruathym. The expectant, trusting expression on Xzorsh’s face told her that it had not.

  “I’ll handle it,” she said shortly. “You’d better go. Ibn is looking this way, and something tells me he’s imagining a bright red harpoon target painted on your backside.”

  “First, there is something you must know,” Xzorsh said with quiet urgency. “The Regent of Ascarle is seeking you everywhere. The seas resound with her agents and messengers.”

  “Really. In that case you can easily find a way to send her this”, Liriel said, lifting one hand in a rude gesture.

  The sea elf smiled faintly. “A difficult sentiment to express with webbed hands, and just as well. I’d rather not alert the illithid’s minions to my location and yours. I just came here to warn you.”

  “And perhaps to remind me of my promise?” she suggested slyly.

  “When have I ever offered you such insult?” he protested. “You said you would find another wizard to teach me the art of magic. In my mind, the thing is as good as done.”

  Liriel huffed and slid an arch glance at Fyodor. “He doesn’t know much about the drow, does he?”

  “He knows you,” Fyodor said, sending an approving nod toward the sea elf.

  The drow rolled her eyes. “I’ll find someone in Skullport and send word to you through the Relay,” she suggested, naming the efficient underwater alliance that sped messages throughout the northern seas.

  “It would be better to keep your location as quiet as possible, even after you arrive in Skullport,” Xzorsh advised. “Whatever your captain says, I plan to stay with the ship until you reach port. In these troubled waters, you will need my eyes and my voice.”

  “Your voice,” repeated Fyodor thoughtfully, his gaze shifting from the drow to the sea elf. “If word of Liriel’s passage is widely spread, it is likely that goodly folk will also hear of a sea-going drow wizard, and mistrust her intentions. She may need someone to speak for her.”

  Xzorsh acknowledged this with a grimace and a nod. “My people have heard. Many are deeply concerned.”

  “What about the sea elves we freed from the prisons of Ascarle?” Liriel pointed out. “Some fought at Ruathym. They will speak for me!”

  “They will speak of a drow priestess, and more than a priestess,” Fyodor said soberly. “You did not see yourself soaring above the battle, black fire spilling from your hands and burning in your eyes. Those who saw might well believe they have reason to fear you.”

  The memory sent a surge of despair racing through the drow. She quickly gathered herself and pushed both memory and emotion aside. Casting her eyes skyward, she threw up her hands in feigned disgust.

  “Sell your soul to the dark powers on behalf of goodly folk, and this is the thanks you get,” she said flippantly. “Oh, yes, I definitely see the allure in a life of service.”

  Xzorsh looked shocked, and doubly so when Fyodor chuckled. The warrior clapped the sea elf on the shoulder. “It is only her way of speaking,” Fyodor assured him. “All will be well.”

  The elf nodded uncertainly. He vaulted over the rail and slipped into the waves without sound or splash. Fyodor watched him go, and the expression in his winter-blue eyes did not match his reassuring words.

  All will be well, Liriel repeated silently. She had never once heard this sentiment expressed during her years in Menzoberranzan, but humans seemed inordinately fond of it. Some of them actually believed it to be true.

  The bleak look on Fyodor’s face proclaimed he knew better.

  She twined her arms around his neck and let him gather her close, marveling anew at the comfort in a simple embrace. Before he buried his face in her hair, Liriel noted his troubled expression. Most likely, she surmised, he was concerned that his words to Xzorsh shaped a pledge he could not keep. She could think of few things more likely to trouble her friend. Drow promises were like the thin wheaten sea biscuits that formed a staple of the seafarer’s diet: easily made, easily broken. To Fyodor, a promise was as immutable as sunrise.

  It occurred to Liriel, and not for the first time, that humans led incredibly complicated lives.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A WOLF IS ALWAYS A WOLF

  The drow and the Rashemi stood together for a long moment, entwined in each other’s arms. After a while Fyodor stepped back and attempted a smile.

  “This is thoughtless of the others. A long sea journey is hard enough on a man without such reminders of what they cannot have.”

  Liriel’s white brows shot up. “If you’re feeling generous enough to suggest sharing the wealth, forget it. You’re more than enough for me.”

  “Words I have heard from many a fair maiden,” he said lightly.

  “Really? How many?”

  He sent the drow a questioning look.

  She shrugged. “Just wondering how many human women I’ll have to kill once we get to Rashemen.”

  Fyodor’s jaw dropped. “Little raven, I was speaking in jest!” he sputtered.

  The drow let out a crow of laughter. “You really thought I was serious?”

  “Sometimes it is hard to tell,” he said carefully.

  She considered that and found it reasonable. “I suppose it would be.”

  They fell silent, sharing the moonlight if not their individual thoughts. After a while she glanced up at Fyodor’s profile and gave him a teasing poke in the ribs.

  “You’re wearing your storyteller face,” she observed, referring to the far-off, pensive expression that preceded one of his tales. Her people’s few storytellers existed to extol the victories of the ruling matrons and their warriors. She found an odd appeal in the notion that guidance and wisdom could be found in ancient legends. Not that she would ever admit to this, of course.

  He absently captured her hand in his. “Storyteller face? What does such a thing look like?”

  “All serious and tight, like you’re trying to hold in a sneeze. Must be the mold growing on those old tales of yours.”

  Fyodor met her teasing with a somber stare. “A story, yes, but not one of the old legends.”

  He released her hand and propped his elbows on the rail. “A few years ago, my sister Vastish found a wolf pup in the forest, an albino runt that would never have survived in the wild.”

  “I know of t
hese wolves,” Liriel interrupted eagerly. “Beautiful and fierce they are said to be! A drow I killed a while back gave me some lorebooks about the surface world. I didn’t kill him for the books,” she added defensively, noting the incredulous expression on Fyodor’s face. “Forget it. Say on, and I’ll be silent.”

  “The villager elders counseled Vastish on her folly,” he continued. “ ‘A wolf will always be a wolf,’ they said. ‘It will steal chickens, chase the children at play.’ Vastish was never one to take any counsel but her own, and so the wolf stayed. She named the pup Ghost for its white fur. Ghost was as fond and loyal to Vastish as any dog could be, but always the villagers watched him with narrowed eyes.”

  Fyodor fell silent for several moments. Liriel’s gaze searched his face. “This story makes you sad. It’s not finished, is it?”

  He turned to face her. “Time passed, and a child was born to Vastish, a son who grew up with a wolf at his side. One day the boy was in the forest gathering mushrooms when he came across a den of wolf pups in the hollow of a bassilia tree. The mother returned. She defended her young.” His bleak expression spoke of the child’s fate, but the way he regarded Liriel suggested that this tale was not, first and foremost, the story of a lost boy.

  “What happened to Ghost?”

  “He was destroyed,” Fyodor said. “The villagers feared that another child would learn to trust and would forget caution.”

  Liriel nodded. “Smart.” Her eyes widened as she made the connection. “So you’re telling me that if your people fall afoul of a drow, any drow, I’m the next Ghost?”

  For a long time Fyodor didn’t answer. “Not while I live,” he vowed.

  “Ah, then all will be well,” Liriel said lightly, hoping this foolish human sentiment might tease the troubled look from his eyes. “You’re very hard to kill—Lolth knows I’ve tried!”

  Her blasphemous jest brought a faint smile to his lips, and again he reached for her hand, but before Fyodor could touch her, Someone else did.

  A sudden and profound chill fell over Liriel, freezing her, body and soul, like the embrace of a malevolent spirit.

  After the first shock, Liriel recognized a familiar presence, one she had welcomed during her short stay in Arach Tinileth. Back then, the young drow had looked upon Lolth with affection. The goddess listened to prayers and rewarded devotion with gifts of magic. This was a level of attention and generosity beyond anything Liriel had experienced. She knew the goddess better now. Lolth was no loving parent; Lolth was a power that corrupted and destroyed.

  A jealous power.

  Liriel’s eyes darted to Fyodor’s face, and in her mind’s eye she saw again a devotion common in Menzoberranzan: a priestess walking swiftly to Lolth’s altar, holding in bloody hands a tray bearing the still-beating heart of her lover. Such was the dedication Lolth demanded. Whenever lust’s smoldering embers threatened to flame into something pure and bright, a drow’s heart-fires were extinguished in blood.

  She struck aside Fyodor’s offered hand and backed away, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her head shaking from side to side in frantic denial.

  Fyodor instinctively took a step toward the drow. She shied away from him, flinging one hand toward him in vehement rejection.

  “Get away. Get away!” she shrieked.

  He watched as she continued to back away, her eyes wide with horror and fixed upon the deck. With the sudden surety of Sight, Fyodor realized that she was not fleeing something, so much as leading it away.

  It was then that Fyodor saw the shadow—an enormous spider with the head of a beautiful elf woman. The rising moon was directly behind Liriel, and the shadow stalked her, moving with her as if it were her own.

  Acting on impulse, Fyodor drew his sword and thrust it into the shadow-spider’s heart. The blade bit deep between the deck’s planking. Before he could release the hilt, a spurt of power—cold, dark, and angry—shot up through the sword and sent him hurtling backward through the air. He hit the ship’s rail with a bone-shaking thud.

  “Run,” Liriel pleaded, “or swim. Anything, but stay away!”

  He could not understand the anguish in her voice, but neither could he leave her to fight this battle alone. He pushed himself off the rail and came back in at a run. Instead of renewing his attack, he took Liriel in his arms, sweeping her aside and standing so that their combined shadow covered that of the Spider Queen.

  “You have no hold upon Liriel,” he said softly, speaking directly to the lurking evil. “You have broken with her and she with you.”

  Faint, mocking laughter rang through his head. Once a wolf, always a wolf, taunted a too-beautiful female voice, speaking in a strange language that he somehow understood.

  Liriel covered her ears. “She was listening to us,” she said in a despairing whisper. “Fyodor, leave me now.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t understand! No male comes between a priestess and her goddess and lives!”

  “What of it? You are no priestess.”

  “I was,” Liriel said, “and She’s not going to let me go.”

  “She has no choice,” Fyodor said firmly. “No god, no goddess can force worship upon a sovereign soul. You wish to be free of her?”

  “Yes!”

  “Tell her so.”

  “I have.”

  “Again,” Fyodor urged, “then one time more. Repudiate a god three times, and all ties are broken. All the old stories promise this.”

  It seemed worth a try. Liriel nodded and took a deep breath. “Lady Lolth, I am your priestess no longer. Mother Lolth, I am your child no more,” she said in whisper.

  The chill intensified. Liriel noted the pallor of her friend’s face, the blue-gray hue that touched his lips. Her fear for him returned, and she tried to wriggle away. Fyodor shook his head and tightened his grip, then drew his cloak around them both. The warmth they shared coursed through them both, pushing back the darkness and cold.

  The drow and her sworn guardian clung together for several moments, breath abated as they awaited the dark goddess’s response.

  Moments passed, and there was nothing but the sounds of the crew at work and the slap of water against the ship.

  Liriel slipped from Fyodor’s arms and stepped away. The moon-cast shadow before her was her own–an image of a small, slender drow with shoulders squared and head thrown defiantly back.

  She resisted the temptation to wilt with relief and sent Fyodor a wan grin. “Next time I tease you about those moldy tales of yours, remind me of this moment.”

  “Better that we both forget,” he countered. “These things belong in the past, and there they will remain.”

  “Will they?” she said, her voice suddenly serious.

  “You must make it so. Do not speak that name. Do nothing to invoke Her return.”

  “Hoy, First Axe!” shouted a rough male voice.

  They both turned toward the call. For a short time, Fyodor had held this title and acted as a war leader on Ruathym. Some of the men who’d fought beside him sailed on Narwhal.

  A few of the sailors stood idle, gazing toward the drow and her champion quizzically as they tried to make sense of Liriel’s latest, inexplicable outburst. Most, however, were busily employed with tending the wounded, rolling dead bullywugs over the rail, or swabbing the gore of battle off the decks. One man stood apart, his bloody mop raised to point at the moon. Fyodor recognized him as Harlric, a grizzled veteran of sea and sword. Winging across the moon was a dark, avian form, one he also knew.

  “A raven?” he murmured.

  Liriel came to his side, one hand shielding her eyes from the bright moonlight. This was a mystery, one that lay close to them both. Fyodor’s fond name for her was “little raven,” and in her time on the surface she’d learned enough of these intelligent, uncanny birds to appreciate the comparison and to understand the oddity of this sighting.

  “Don’t they fly only by day? And aren’t we still two or three days from land?
”

  He nodded. “This is no natural creature.”

  “Full moon,” one of the men observed sagely. “ ’Tis the time for strange visitations. Killed me a werewolf once, and at the full of the moon.”

  “Full moon or no, it’s an omen,” muttered another man. His fingers shaped a gesture of warding, and he cast a suspicious glance at the drow. “An evil omen!”

  “Not according to the First Axe’s stories,” insisted Harlric. “The way he tells it, the raven carries messages twixt one world and t’other. Must be important news to bring a land-loving bird so far out to sea.”

  “Must be,” agreed the slayer of werewolves, his eyes following the messenger’s spiraling descent. “It’s a-comin’ in. Who here’s on speakin’ terms with a raven?”

  No one moved forward. The bird banked sharply and veered away in a rising circle. Fyodor caught sight of the pale streak on one gleaming wing.

  “The mark of Eilistraee,” he said quietly, pointing.

  Liriel’s eyes widened as she noted the silver feathers. She lifted a clenched fist high, bracing her forearm with her other hand. The raven promptly swooped down and landed on her wrist. From there it hopped to a nearby barrel and bobbed its black head in greeting.

  “I come from the Promenade Temple and from its Lady, the High Priestess Qilué Veladorn,” the raven announced in shrill, slightly raucous tones. “I bear a message for Liriel Baenre, daughter of the First House of Menzoberranzan.”

  Liriel darted a glare around the circle of curious men who’d gathered to witness this wonder. Her gaze lingered on Lord Caladorn. Something in his face—the watchful intelligence in his eyes, the considering mien of his pursed lips—set off alarms in her mind. Drow deathsingers wore a similar expression when they witnessed feats of treachery and mayhem, weaving tales of dark glory while the deed was still in the doing. This Caladorn sang tales to someone, of that Liriel was suddenly very, very certain.

  “Do you mind?” she snapped. “This is a private conversation.”