Daughter of the Drow (7 page)

“I can’t begin to thank you!” she cried joyfully.

Gromph Baenre smiled down at her, but his amber eyes remained cold. “Not yet, perhaps, but when the time comes I will tell you how you can properly express your gratitude. Become a priestess and seize what power you can. But never forget you are a wizard first and foremost. Your loyalty belongs to me.”

The warmth fled from Uriel’s heart. She held the archmage’s hard gaze, and her golden eyes mirrored his. “Don’t worry, Father,” she said softly. “Lloth forbid I should ever forget what I am to you.”

Dawn touched the snow-tipped pines, and in the faint light the mist over Lake Ashane glowed a sunrise pink. On the eastern side of the lake rose a stark, steep hill, its crest hidden in dense clouds. At the base of this hill a young man reined his sturdy little horse to a halt. His mountain pony—a shaggy, barrel-shaped beast as ill-tempered as she was strong—stomped the frozen ground and nickered irritably.

Take ease, Sasha,” crooned her rider in a remarkably deep, rich bass voice. “We have ridden through the night, you and I, but at last we have found the place.”

The young man took a long, deep breath of the cold morning air. “Can you not feel it?” he murmured. “Here a mighty battle was waged and lost. Here we begin.”

With that, Fyodor of Rashemen swung down from his saddle. He considered the hill before him and decided he would have to walk. Sasha might look a bit like a mountain goat—except in battle, when she resembled nothing so much as a fierce, four-legged dwarf—but the slope was too steep even for her. So he left the horse untethered and began his trek up the mountain.

Winter was harsh this year, and spring late to come. The air was brittle with cold, and the snow crunched and squeaked under his boots as he climbed. But Fyodor was at home with the harsh climate. This was his land, and he had spent all of his nineteen winters within its borders. Rashemen was written in the broad, chiseled planes of his face, the straight dark hair the color of bare-limbed trees, and his winter-pale skin. Fyodor was a strong man, stocky and just a bit short of six feet. He was also a simple man; he traveled clad in layers of warm, sturdy peasant clothes and a practical cloak of dark wool. His only weapons were a blunt, roughly hammered sword of some dark metal and a three-foot cudgel fashioned from light, rock-hard driftwood. He used the driftwood club now as a staff, plunging it into the snow again and again as he hauled himself up the hill.

At last Fyodor reached the summit. He stood for a long moment, looking out over his land. Lake Ashane and the surrounding countryside lay before him, clearly visible despite the clouds that huddled over the mountaintop. To his north stretched the deep, ancient Ashenwood. Huge swaths of land lay barren, for in recent months hundreds of trees had fallen to the axes of the Tuigan barbarians. The invaders had razed large tracts of the forest to build ships for their ill-fated crossing. Fyodor shook his head in mute grief at the sight of yet another scar upon the land.

The Tuigan barbarians had swept through his beloved Rashemen, leaving pain and destruction everywhere. He had fought them, and he would be fighting still but for the command of the Witches who ruled the land. Fyodor had proven his valor in battle and had been sent away with honor. Even so, he had been sent away.

Fyodor accepted his fate without rancor, for none knew better than he the danger he posed to those around him. He would no doubt fight for Rashemen again, but he dared not do so until he had mastered the enemy within. Just the sight of the long-cold battlefield below him sent a familiar, dangerous heat through Fyodor”s veins.

So the young man turned away from the blighted landscape and faced the task ahead. A stone tower crowned the hill; he gave it a quick glance and slogged off through the snow in search of an ancient well. Behind the tower he found a simple, circular stone wall and knew at once he had found the source of this place’s unique power.

He dropped to one knee to honor the ancient, mysterious spirit who dwelt on this distant hillside. The tower had been built on this place of power several hundred years before. The Witches’ magic was more potent here, and a small circle of them could protect the western boundaries of their land-From here the dreaded Witch boats were launched against any who ventured onto Lake Ashane. Unmanned and armed with powerful magic, the Witch boats attacked all who dared set sail upon the lake. With the help of the place-spirit, the Witches could even summon water wraiths: creatures of steam who had a scalding touch, and whose breath was hot enough to melt elvish steel. Fyodor had heard these stories from birth, and now he was about to see such wonders for himself.

Fyodor knelt by the well and brushed away some of the snow. He scraped together a handful of ice-encrusted soil and held it tightly in his hand. As he had hoped—and as he had feared—the memory of what had happened came to him.

He saw a circle of women, black-robed and masked, their fingertips touching lightly as they chanted, melding their magic into one powerful spell. He watched in awe as the Witches summoned their legendary defenses against the Tuigan invaders.

Unlike the powerful women who ruled Rashemen, or the Old Ones who taught gifted men to craft wondrous magical items, Fyodor knew no magic except for that which burned in his veins and sped his sword in battle. But he did have a trace of the Sight, as did many of his people. It was an unreliable gift, as hard to command as a dream, and it often seemed to Fyodor that insights came to him just often enough to be annoying. Yet in places like this, places of power, events both wondrous and terrible left echoes for those who could hear.

Through the power of the Sight, Fyodor watched as the sorcerous Witch boats attacked the hastily built Tuigan crafts. He heard the Witches summon poisonous mists to enshroud the lakes, and call upon the giant dragon turtles that lurked beneath the waters. By the scores, by the thousands, the Tuigan died.

All this Fyodor saw, and felt a grim satisfaction at the justice the Witches meted out. Then, suddenly, the vision faded. Still attuned to the echoes of battle, Fyodor felt the remembered presence of a new power, a malevolent magic that seared and corrupted all that it touched. Yet what he saw was only the shadow of a memory; there was no image to accompany the sense of lingering evil, nothing that could tell him of the battle’s end.

Fyodor cast away the handful of soil and rose to his feet. The answers he sought could be found only in the tower. Although he dreaded what he might find, he circled around to the lone door and kicked his way in.

He quickly searched the lower levels. There was no sign of the mystic circle he had glimpsed. The women’s dying agonies lingered in the air of the enchanted tower, but the Witches had simply disappeared. Fyodor was not surprised; even in death, the dark sisterhood cared for its own. No doubt the women’s bodies had been magically whisked away for honorable burial in the Witches’ stronghold city far to the east. Yet a mystery remained: one of those women had possessed an ancient magical treasure, and that treasure had not returned to the hands of the sisterhood. It had become Fyodor’s task to find it.

Fyodor continued his search until he reached the very top of the tower. The uppermost chamber of any keep was usually the most secure room, the place where treasures would be kept.

The door was open a crack, its magical defenses apparently spent. Fyodor nudged the door with his cudgel and it swung inward, creaking softly.

Immediately he was assaulted by a horrid stench: the sickly sweet, unmistakable smell of human carrion. Fyodor flung his arm across his nose to ward off the worst of the odor and pushed into the room. Sprawled about, in various stages of decomposition, were several red-robed figures. Some looked newly dead, others lay in steaming, rotting piles, and a few were little more than dust.

“Red Wizards,” he muttered, and he began to understand what had happened here. Despite his youth, Fyodor had spent years fighting the powerful enemies that surrounded his land. Until the coming of the Tuigan hoard, Rashemen’s deadliest foe had been Thay, an ancient land ruled by the powerful Red Wizards. Many of these wizards used magic to sustain their wretched lives far past the natural span; this would explain the many stages of decay.

But the deaths themselves? The answer to this seeming riddle was plain enough to one who had been raised in the shadow of Thay. The Red Wizards had formed a nominal alliance with the Tuigan invaders, but they were ever alert for opportunities to extend their own power. Any one of them would happily slay his fellows for personal gain. During the recent battle, these wizards had probably banded together to attack the Witches while the women were deep in their spell meld. Once they’d overcome the Witches in spell battle, the wizards had breached the tower and stripped it of its treasures. Then a single wizard had turned on the others and claimed all the treasures of the Witches’ tower for himself.

A quick search of the chamber confirmed Fyodor’s suspicions. There was nothing of value: no spellbooks, none of the famed Rashemi rings and wands, not a single pot of anything that resembled a spell component. The bodies of the Red Wizards had also been stripped of all magic-bearing items. The surviving wizard had taken the magical treasures of both his enemies and his allies.

No doubt this wizard had fled to a secret place, to study in private his stolen treasure until the time he had mastered enough power to return to Thay and increase his domain. Long before that day came, Fyodor would find him.

But first, he had a task to complete.

The young man dragged the dead wizards from the tower. He found a convenient, steep cliff on the south side of the hill and tossed the bodies into the ravine far below. There he left them for carrion. Fyodor did not consider giving the wizards the dignity of burial; in his land, honor must be earned. After all the bodies had been cast out of the tower, Fyodor drew water from the ancient well and sprinkled it around the defiled tower, and in each room.

When the sacred site had been cleansed, Fyodor half-ran, half-slid down the hillside. He had far to go this day, with only the promise of battle at day’s end to coax weary little Sasha onward. It was well for him, Fyodor mused, that the pony loved nothing better than a fight.

Fyodor and Sasha spent the day searching for the renegade wizard. Although the Rashemi was a fine tracker who had hunted everything from wild rothe to the elusive snowcat, he did not really expect to find the wizard’s trail. The battle was many days past, and thousands of footsteps lay buried under the fresh snow. Yet he remembered an old story, and thought he knew where a wizard alone in this forest might go.

The afternoon shadows were long when Fyodor found the first tracks. Huge, three-toed footprints, like those of a giant chicken, skittered through the forest. He followed the tracks deep into the Ashenwood. The forest was different here, quiet and watchful. The shadows were unnaturally deep, and the tall, snow-shrouded pines seemed to whisper secrets. Fyodor could sense the dark enchantment of the place, and Sasha whuffled uneasily as she slogged through the snow.

Night was falling when Fyodor found what he sought. From atop a heavily wooded hill, he glimpsed a small clearing in a valley below. In it stood a trim wooden hut. In most regai’ds the hut was a fairly common Rashemi dwelling—tight and snug, with a thick thatched roof and brightly painted shutters. Unlike most huts, however, this one stood high off the ground on giant chicken legs. The hut strutted about the clearing as if it were a bantam rooster surveying its domain.

Fyodor slipped from Sasha’s back and edged closer to the clearing. He had come this far without any real plan for defeating the wizard, but usually a solution came to him, if he pondered a matter long enough. He crouched down to watch and to wait.

He remembered the old stories, tales of a crone who had once lived in a magical hut. In the stories, the hut whirled and danced when the mistress—or now the master, Fyodor supposed—was sleeping safely within. At the moment, the hut looked as if it were patrolling the clearing. It seemed likely to Fyodor that the occupant was not home. He left Sasha on the hillside and made his way down toward the hut. It was risky, perhaps, but certainly safer than facing a red wizard’s magic, or the lingering curses of the legendary crone.

At the edge of the clearing Fyodor paused and began to sing the words to a childhood verse:

“While the mistress is asleep, Chicken-legs a watch will keep. When the mistress wanders off, Chicken-legs will stand aloft. When the mistress comes again, Chicken-legs will let her in. Stara Baba casts this spell, Listen, hut, and hearken well.”

At the first note of the little song, the hut paused as if to listen. When Pyodor was finished singing, the hut ambled to the center of the clearing, folded its legs, and settled down much as a brooding hen would. The heavy front door swung open.

Fyodor silently blessed the village storyteller. Many times he had stolen away to the old man’s hut to hear stories of far places and homely magic, to learn songs and to dream dreams. Some people thought the old tales and songs were meant only to entertain children, or to while away the long winter nights. Those who had learned to dream knew better.

The warrior drew his sword and walked cautiously toward the hut. Inside he found a jumble of various magics. Dusty vials cluttered the shelves, and long-dry herbs lay about on a table next to the ancient mortar and pestle once used to grind plants into potions. On the vast stone fireplace, an iron caldron bubbled and steamed despite the lack of fuel or fire, making the cottage pleasantly warm. But there was no sign of the treasure.

“Time now to think, not to dream,” Fyodor admonished himself, settling down into the room’s only chair. “The wiz-ard did not carry away all the treasures of a Witches’ tower in a sack.”

He scanned the room, looking for something that was out of place with the simple furnishings. Finally his eyes fell upon the small, elaborately carved wooden box on the table beside him. He picked it up and raised the lid. The box was empty, but for a few bits of junk and jewelry.