Daughter of the Drow (30 page)

The Lady of Chaos had rejected the death sentence that Zeerith QXorlarrin had laid upon Liriel. In its place, a contest had been declared. Lloth’s favor was a capricious thing, a prize awarded to the most resourceful and devious. At the moment, Liriel Baenre seemed to wear that crown. Shakti intended to take it from her.

So she chanted a prayer to the dark goddess of the drow, asking for a spell of invisibility to enshroud her servant. Ssasser, the dark naga, waited eagerly at her side. The snakelike creature was coiled before an ornate mirror, and the faint light from candle sconces set into the mirror’s frame glittered on the naga’s blue-scaled body. Eyes closed, Shakti chanted the final words of the spell. A hiss of unmistakable delight and triumph signaled that Lloth had answered her prayer. Shakti opened her eyes: the naga was gone.

The priestess raised her pitchfork and waved it before the mirror. Instantly the image of the naga appeared in the glass. The creature’s hideous face furrowed in a scowl, and its long thin tongue flicked out toward its reflection.

“Don’t fret, Ssasser. But for this reflection, you’re invisible,” Shakti informed the naga. She knew better than to let the magic-wielding creature out of her sight entirely. The naga was a virtual slave to House Hunzrin, but it was as evil and treacherous as the drow it served. Ssasser would welcome a chance to slay a Hunzrin priestess; indeed, the sly creature began to slink away from the telltale reflection.

“Stay by the mirror, where I can see you,” snapped the priestess. “Listen well: you will return to Liriel Baenre’s home. Search the place for anything that will help you track her. Return to the Hunzrin compound with the information you gain. Then I will give you a pair of quaggoth to aid you in the hunt. When you kill Liriel and bring me her amulet, you will earn your freedom.”

The dark naga’s mirrored face brightened at this news. Quaggoth were huge, white-furred, bipedal creatures that looked like the impossible offspring of ogres and bears. They were not particularly intelligent, but they were fierce hunters, strong and cunning in battle. Some drow enslaved them as soldiers or guards. Ssasser loved to command, and with such troops he would surely accomplish the delightful task of slaying a female drow.

“Ssasser hear all that Shakti mistress say. Ssasser bunt now?” the creature implored.

At a nod from the drow, the naga darted toward the small tunnel that led out of the room and wound downward through the walls of the compound.

Shakti smiled, pleased by the dark naga’s eagerness. She had a high opinion of the Dragon Hoard merchants, and her decision to work with Nisstyre was not made lightly. Still, there were other hunters at her disposal, and she was determined to put every one of them on Liriel’s trail.*

In the hills north of the village of Trollbridge, Fyodor of Kashemen crouched low behind a scattered pile of rocks and peered into a small cave. The sun was rising behind him, but the morning was chill and the rocky soil white with a late frost. The young warrior blew on his hands to warm them and settled down to watch and wait. He had hunted for days; now for the first time, his quarry was within sight.

A spark flared in the depths of the cave, and then another. In moments a tiny campfire let off meager light. There was no smell of cooking meat, but that did not surprise Fyodor. The drow, it would seem, ate their food raw. He had followed these three through the forest, and more than once he’d come across game they’d recently slain. Although he had never lost their trail, not once did Fyodor see the remnants of a campfire. He was rather surprised the dark elves risked one now. Of course, daylight was coming, and a small fire, lit for warmth in this cave on a remote hillside, was unlikely to be spotted.

Before the arrival of each new day, the drow found shelter from the sun. The rough countryside was studded with caves, but this was the first time Fyodor had actually found their hiding place. He’d hunted the drow for days now, starting in the Underdark cavern strewn with the bodies of giant bats and dark elf warriors. Something about the battlefield disturbed him; what exactly, he could not say. He had searched the bodies of the two slain drow and had not found the amulet on either. This did not surprise him, for surely the survivors would take such a treasure with them. So he had followed the bloody footsteps of the three surviving drow to a steep tunnel that led him up into rugged, rocky hills. The drow headed west, traveling throughout the night with speed that Fyodor, following their trail by day, could barely match.

But now his time had come. When the drow emerged from the cave with the coming of night, Fyodor would claim his amulet, or he would die.

The dark naga cowered in a corner, wary despite the spell of invisibility hiding him from view. Ssasser had slipped into Liriel’s castle as he’d done before, easily overcoming the trapped door by swallowing the crossbow-fired dart. He did not fear the servants that tended the drow female’s abode, for hie servitude to the Hunzrin family had purchased him a considerable amount of magic. But the powerful being in the Liriel’s study was far beyond the naga’s strength.

Gromph Baenre, the most famed wizard hi the city, was seated at his daughter’s table. Books were scattered about his feet, and his face was fixed in a fearsome scowl.

His long black fingers moved through the gestures of a spell, and he muttered arcane words with the precision earned by great power and much practice. Ssasser paid little heed to the gestures—since the naga lacked hands, such knowledge would do him little good—but he listened carefully to the spell and repeated it to himself silently, several times, until he was certain he had it right.

So intent was the creature on his stolen lesson that he did not at first notice the result of the spell. Smoke flowed into the study, seemingly from the carved stone walls. The cloud tugged free of the wall and formed into a drow statue of living stone.

can find nothing of value here,” the wizard said, waving his hand impatiently over the piles of discarded books. “Find the girl’s servants and see what you can learn from them about her whereabouts.”

The golem bowed and strode from the room, its feet clicking with every step. Ssasser shrunk back beyond the reach of those stone boots, then slithered forward eagerly to see what the archmage might do next. Seldom did the naga have the chance to observe such a powerful wizard, and the creature hoped Gromph might demonstrate another spell.

But the drow wizard did not oblige. He ran his hands through his long white hair in a gesture of supreme frustration; then he sat in silence, deep in his own thoughts. At length he took a small book from a pocket of his glittering cloak and, after flipping through a few pages, he tossed it onto the table.

“I cannot do this alone,” he murmured to himself; “not even with a copy of the spellbook I gave her. Using these gates, Liriel could be nearly anywhere. I cannot leave the city myself. And yet, can I trust such spells to another wizard?”

Gromph rose and began to pace the room. “No,” he concluded at length. “If I cannot find the girl before she learns of her danger and flees the Underdark, she is lost to me, and her magic with her.”

A clatter arose from the floor below. The scream of a halfling slave came to them clearly, a wail of pain that quickly faded into an earnest babble of words. The wizard smiled and strode from the room to see what information his stone servant had extracted from Uriel’s maidservant.

The invisible naga slithered with frantic haste toward the table. His fanged maw opened wide and he lunged for the precious book. He swallowed it, gulping several times to speed its way down his gullet toward the safety of an internal organ that housed, at the moment, two spell scrolls, several vials of poisons and potions, a small mithril axe, a rather nice dagger, and the crossbow dart he’d recently swallowed. Ssasser could regurgitate any one of these items at will. For good measure, the naga swallowed a large map of the surface world. With this, he would convince his Hunzrin slavemistress he had the knowledge needed to track down the renegade female.

The spellbook he would keep as his reward, and his secret.

Far from the tumultuous drow city, Liriel skipped lightly through the dark passages of the Underdark. She was tired but supremely happy. Now that the Windwalker amulet was in her hands, enspelled to hold the unique magic of the

Underdark, she would return to Arach-Tinilith to hone her powers in preparation for her journey into the Lands of Light. The years of training ahead did not seem so long now, or the burden of her clerical studies quite so heavy. She wished, fleetingly, that there was someone with whom she could share her success. But that was not the way of the drow, and Liriel’s spirits were too high for her to entertain regrets over something that could never be. The young drow conjured the gate that would take her back to Spelltower Xorlarrin and, with a sigh of satisfaction, she stepped into the portal.

Kharza-kzad was there to greet her, but he did not seem his normal fussy self. The wizard stood tense and still. His sparse hair, which usually stood in wild disarray, had been neatly combed, and even the wrinkles in his face seemed less pronounced. He seemed strangely determined, oddly composed.

“Do you have any idea what you have done?” he said in a tight, mournful voice.

Liriel froze, momentarily stunned by the realization that Kharza had somehow found her out. But of course she could get around the wizard; she had charmed him into her way of thinking many times before. “Of course I know what I’ve done! It’s quite marvelous, actually. I’ve found a way—”

“You’ve signed your death warrant, that’s what you’ve done!” he interrupted. “Are you so naive you think the rulers of Menzoberranzan would allow you to wield such power? What drow would not kill to possess this ability for herself?”

The girl bunked in puzzlement. Few of Menzoberranzan’s drow ventured into the Underdark, other than the patrols ordered to keep the surrounding tunnels clear of enemies. Few dark elves shared her curious nature, her love of adventure and exploration for its own sake. And certainly no one wanted to travel the Lands of Light on a quest for knowledge, in search of a rune of power. For that matter, what drow of Menzoberranzan knew of rune magic? It was by purest happenstance that she herself had pieced together the story of the Windwalker. No one could know what the amulet meant to her, or what it could do.

Understanding came to her quickly. Of course they could not know! The drow no doubt believed the amulet was like most magical items in the city, that the mere possession of it by a wizard or priestess of sufficient power would be enough to unleash its apells! No wonder Kharza said many would kill for it!

“But the amulet would do them little good! Its magic is not like anything we know,” she said earnestly. “Let me explain—”

“Don’t,” Kharza said bluntly, abruptly raising both hands in a silencing gesture. “The less I know about this amulet, the better my own chances of survival.” land’s eyes dropped to the battle wand hi her tutor’s right hand, then lifted slowly to his resolute face. The truth struck her: Kharza meant to kill her.

The wizard took a step closer, his empty hand stretched out toward her and his wand held back and low, like a ready sword. “The amulet must go to the Sorcere for study. Give it to me now.”

Her hand closed around the tiny golden sheath that hung over her heart. She tried to speak and found she could not, so dry was her throat and so tight the pain in her chest. Liriel had suffered many betrayals in her young life, but none had come upon her more unexpectedly than this. She knew that Kharza, in his own way, cared about her, perhaps more than anyone ever had before. She had come to rely on this, and something approaching trust had developed between them. But among drow, trust invariably brought betrayal. Liriel recognized the depth of her folly and accepted her punishment.

With the courage and defiance expected of a dark-elven noble, the girl lifted her chin to meet death. Her fingers tightened around the amulet, and with her free hand she formed her final words in the silent language of the drow.

Strike now. The amulet will survive. You can pick it out of the ash.

Kharza-kzad lifted the wand and pointed it at her. They stood facing each other in tense, aching silence for many long moments.

Then, unexpectedly, the wizard swore a ripe oath and flung the magical weapon aside. “I cannot,” he mourned.

Liriel watched in disbelief as her tutor’s hands flashed through the gestures of a spell. A gate, a glittering diamond-shaped portal, appeared in the center of the room.

“You must leave Menzoberranzan,” the wizard insisted, pushing her toward the shining door. “It isn’t safe for you to remain here. Take your new magic to the surface and live there as best you can.”

“But—”

“There’s no time to argue. Go now.”

Stunned into obedience, Liriel stepped toward the gate.

“Wait!” shrieked Kharza, lunging forward to drag her back. He mumbled to himself for a moment, busily ticking off the numbers to nine on his fingers.

“Just as I thought,” he muttered. He seized a bellpull hanging on the wall and tugged at it urgently.

A male servant came in prompt answer to the summons. Kharza seized the drow and thrust him into the glittering gate. There was a flash of light, and the acrid smell of burned flesh filled the room as the unfortunate servant disappeared.

“Every ninth person through that gate is incinerated,” Kharza-kzad explained absently. “As I have told you before, no magical portal is without protection and without danger.”

The familiar, pedantic tone of her teacher’s voice broke through Liriel’s trancelike state of shock. She threw herself into the wizard’s arms, and they stood together in a brief, desperate embrace. Neither was moved to speak, for there were no words in the drow language for such moments.

Kharza-kzad put her gently away. “Go now,” he said again.

The young drow nodded and stepped toward the gate. She lifted a hand in farewell and disappeared into the shining magic.

The wizard’s thin shoulders rose and fell in a heavy sigh. He turned away, his movements slowed by the unfamiliar weight of sadness and loss, leaving the gate to fade in its own time. As he did a stray bit of metal caught his eye. Ever tidy, the old drow bent to pick it up. It was a brass wristband, embossed with the symbol of House Xorlarrin, and it was all that remained of the drow servant.