Daughter of the Drow (9 page)

Elaine Cunüingham among them shifted swiftly and subtly. Later, he would address such matters himself.

Nisstyre pointed to the glowing dagger tucked in the belt of his strongest fighter. “Use that, and cut through the ice. I want that amulet unharmed, but break the chain if you must.”

The tall drow drew his enspelled dagger and began to chip through the ice that covered the human’s chest. Once the blade slipped and drew blood; the man’s faint smile never faltered. Finally the drow freed the dagger pendant and broke the chain with a yank. He handed the device to Nisstyre, but the wizard shook his head.

“No. You take it and return to the Underdark. We’ll study it later. I’ll follow you in a day or so; at the moment I want to see if I can ascertain just where in the Nine Hells that hut went.”

“And the human?”

“Leave him,” Nisstyre snarled. “Let him suffer from the cold and exposure. He will die far too soon to suit me.”

The wizard cast yet one more spell, and a glittering oval appeared in the clearing. He gave a few more instructions to his captain, and then disappeared alone into the forest. One by one, the drow thieves slipped through the gate on their way to distant, even more dangerous, lands.

When the last drow disappeared and there was no one left to fight, the battle rage that had gripped Fyodor faded away. He slumped in his icy prison, utterly exhausted. He never felt the pain, or the cold, or the tired muscles for as long as the battle lasted. That always came later. He had seen other berserkers die of exhaustion, or from the cumulative effect of countless, unnoticed wounds. And these were men who, unlike him, could control their battle rages and bring them on at will. Fyodor considered himself very lucky to have lived out nineteen winters.

Sasha, he noted with deep sorrow, had not been so fortunate. The fierce pony lay tangled with the body of the gnoll she had battled with teeth and hooves, but the numerous thin slashes that scored her shaggy coat did not come from a dog-man’s sword. Drow steel had slain Sasha while she fought the gnoll, and for no apparent reason other than the joy dark elves took in wanton killing. A cold, lingering anger kindled in Fyodor*s heart—not a remnant of the berserker rage, but the natural wrath of a man who abhorred cruelty, and who had suffered the senseless lose of a friend.

For a long moment, Fyodor was aware of nothing but hie anger and his grief. Then he realized his icy prison had thinned. The terrible heat of his berserker rage had melted much of the ice and he could move a bit. The battle fury had left him, but he still had his natural strength, honed by his seven-year apprenticeship to the village swordsmith. So he bunched his muscles and pushed against the icy shell.

Moments passed, and nothing happened. Fyodor tried rocking back and forth, throwing his weight from one side to the other. Finally the ice around hie feet gave way. He toppled like a felled tree, and his prison shattered when he hit the ground. He was wet to the skin and cut by the ice shards in a dozen places, but at least he was free.

Exhausted but determined, Fyodor hauled himself to his feet and collected his fallen weapons. He might not have been able to answer the drow wizard while in the grip of his battle fury, but he had understood every word. The amulet he needed was on its way to the dreaded Underdark.

Fyodor staggered toward the rapidly fading light that marked the magical doorway. Without hesitation, he stepped through the gate.

Only one day, Liriel thought grimly as she lashed her supplies into the long, barrel-shaped craft. The life she knew would end in just one day. But until the moment this day was over, no one—not her father, not Matron Triel, not Lloth herself—would keep Liriel from living the time that remained to the fullest.

The young drow gave her boat one last inspection. It was an odd craft, fashioned of thin, lightweight metal and padded inside and out with air-filled sacks. The sides curved up, the front came to a rounded point, and ropes controlled the position of two short paddles. Next Uriel checked her cargo: the pyrimo, a supply of freshwater mussels harvested from the shallows of Lake Donigarten, and clams brought to the Bazaar from some distant sea. There were also a few magical items of minor value and a festive gown that had been the height of fashion two seasons past.

When all was ready, Liriel took the guide rope and dragged the boat to a small, black opening in the rocky floor. Water trickled into the hole from a crack in the wall, and the distant rush of water sounded from somewhere far below. She pointed the rounded prow at the opening and then threw herself facedown into the boat.

The craft, tipped and then shot down into the tunnel, falling rapidly and gaining speed by the moment. Liriel seized the guide ropes and used the paddles to nudge and bump her way through the twisting tunnel. A spray of water shot up over the boat with each bump, and webs from the low ceiling tangled in her flying hair. The roar of water soon became deafening as the flow grew deeper and faster.

Then, suddenly, the tunnel was gone. Water flowed in from a dozen similar passages and converged into a white-water river of astonishing speed and fury.

Wild, exultant laughter burst from Liriel and was snatched away by the rush of wind and water. Few of her friends enjoyed this sport—it provided little opportunity for intrigue, and there were merely survivors, not winners—but Liriel loved every wet, bruising moment. Water-running required quick reflexes and nerves of ice. For what she had in mind, she would have need of both.

In the water ahead loomed a large black stalagmite, a thick black rock formation that thrust upward to touch the descending finger of an equally forbidding stalactite. Like mirror images, the two stone spears marked the left-hand boundary of the water-running course. Few who’d ventured beyond that marker had survived.

Liriel counted off the seconds. At the last possible moment, she pulled hard on the left-hand rope. The craft swung around hard, and the force of the onrushing water sent it into a roll. Twice, three times the barrel-shaped boat spun before it righted itself. Liriel came up soaking wet and gasping from the cold. She pulled the right oar into position and steeled herself for the jolt to come.

Her boat crashed broadside into the stalagmite and was pinned there by the force of the onrushing waters. Liriel tugged at the right oar rope with all her strength, and the boat pushed slowly away from the rock.

Now came the tricky part. Sometimes it took her two or three runs before she found her secret tunnel. But luck was with her today. Her boat was swept into the hidden undertow that rushed toward a second stone chute. The drow let out a whoop of glee and hung on for her very life.

This tunnel shot down in an almost straight drop. Liriel closed her eyes and braced herself against the sides of the boat with hands and feet, for nothing she could do now would alter her course. Then, suddenly, the tunnel was gone and Liriel’s craft was free-falling through a tumbling spray of water and mist.

Her boat hit the water below in a smooth dive and plunged deep. When her descent finally slowed, Liriel scrambled out of the boat and swam upward. She broke the surface and gasped in air, then swam for the rocky shore with strong, even strokes. She rolled out onto the bank and lay there, exhausted but triumphant: she had survived one more run!

After a few moments’ rest to catch her breath, Liriel sat up and surveyed her surroundings with proprietorial pride. The waterfall ended in a large, icy pond surrounded by the rocky walls of a deeply buried grotto. Caves and alcoves were scattered here and there, begging to be explored. Eerie blue and green light filled the cavern, for the rocks here emitted the strange, radioactive power that was unique to the Underdark. Such sites of power, known as faerzress, were highly prized by the drow and jealously guarded. This one was Liriel’s alone. She earned it anew each time she made the treacherous journey.

A dry, metallic whisper came from the depth of a nearby cave, a sound like that of chain mail being dragged along rock. Then came the rapid click of taloned feet, the angry roar of some enormous creature preparing to oust the invader from its home. Liriel leaped to her feet just as the deep dragon burst from its lair.

Fyodor slumped against the rocky wall of the tunnel, and his eyes drifted shut. Strange, he thought numbly, how the darkness did not deepen when he closed his eyes. He opened and closed them several times and could discern no difference whatsoever. Never had he seen such blackness, not on the darkest winter night. It closed in on him, even more stifling than the narrow tunnels he’d stumbled through, or the knowledge that countless tons of earth and rock loomed over his head. This, then, was the Underdark.

He could hear the faint, fading footsteps of the drow tllieves, but he could not tell from whence the sound came. Sound played tricks down here, bouncing off tunnel walls and echoing through stone. The footsteps were distorted by other noises: the constant drip of water, the rattling tumble of loose rocks and soil, the scurrying feet of small, unseen creatures. So winding were the tunnels, so full of turns and unexpected drops and climbs, that Fyodor could not even tell if the drow were above or below him. He might be a fine tracker in his own land, but he was very, very far from home.

After several moments of internal debate, Fyodor felt around in his pack and took out a stick and a strip of doth. He wound the cloth around the end of the stick, then reached for the flask tucked into his sash. Carefully he poured a little of the liquid onto the cloth. He fumbled in his bag for flint and steel.

The sparks lit up the blackness like flashes of lightning, and the torch easily caught flame. In the sudden flair of light, Fyodor got his first good look at the Underdark.

“Mother of all gods,” he whispered in a mixture of horror and awe.

He was in a cave, larger than any he had imagined possible. The ceiling arched high overhead, and long, twisted spires of rocks stabbed downward. The path he followed had a solid wall of rock along one side, and a sheer drop on the other. Just a few paces from where he stood, the pathway fell hundreds of feet into a gorge. On the far side of the divide was a lacy rock curtain resembling a giant honeycomb. Behind it Fyodor saw more paths winding up along the cliffs sheer walls and openings that could only be more tunnels. Wondrous bridges fashioned of stone and magic spanned the gorge at several levels. This place was a crossroads built throughout countless centuries by alien and unknowable cultures. Its vastness and complexity overwhelmed Fyodor as even the darkness could not.

Yet he set aside such thoughts and pressed on with his search. Dropping to one knee, the Rashemi examined the rocky floor. Finally he found a marker: a single droplet of nearly melted slush. The drow thieves had passed this way.

Fyodor followed the trail of diminishing dampness into a side tunnel, knowing as he did each step took him closer to death. He had no idea where he was and knew no way to return to the surface once he retrieved the precious amulet. He had entered the Underdark fully aware of the danger—indeed, the apparent futility—of this course of action, but what other choice did he have? Without the amulet he would die. Perhaps his time would not come for a year; perhaps it would come tomorrow.

Without warning, a giant insectlike creature darted into Fyodor’s circle of torchlight. Bottle-green in hue and fully five feet in length, the monster looked like some unholy offspring of a spider and a scorpion. It had no eyes that Fyodor could see, but its excited chittering left little doubt it sensed the man’s presence. Long, whiplike antennae groped here and there for its prey, and the enormous pincers on its spine-covered front legs flared and snapped repeatedly with a sound like that of steel traps closing.

Perhaps, Fyodor thought grimly, his time would come today.

Liriel stood absolutely still as the deep dragon stalked toward her. Both of its sharp-fanged maws dripped with hungry anticipation, and its two heads bobbed as it walked. For this dragon was a freak, a rare product of the strange radiation of the Underdark. Smaller than most of its kind—a mere fifty feet from the top of its two horned heads to the tip of its single tail—the dragon was covered with shimmering purple scales that emitted their own weird light.

The two-headed beast began to circle Liriel, like a house lizard playing with a doomed scurry rat. The head on the right wore an expression of weary resignation, the one on the left a sly, if slightly dim-witted, smile.

“Small, she is,” chirped the smiling dragon head, eying the dark-elven girl. “Hardly big enough to bother snaring. I’ll have this one, and you can eat the next drow that happens by, hmm?”

“Don’t be such a dolt,” snapped the right-sided head in a voice that was deep and gravelly, yet definitely female. “We go through this ridiculous game every time she comes. It’s getting old. Eat the drow or don’t, and have done with it!”

“Hello, Zz’Pzora,” Liriel said, addressing both heads and holding out her hands to show she held no weapons. I’ve brought you the usual goodies.”

“And a gown for me?” the left head inquired eagerly.
FU need something to wear at Suzonia’s next dinner party!”

The right head rolled her eyes. “We get out so seldom,” she said with dry sarcasm. “It’s so important we make the right impression.”

Liriel bit back a grin. The dragon was clearly confused, but she was often rather amusing. The two heads had different, distinct personalities that were almost always in conflict. The left head was vain and flighty, and liked to fantasize about visiting the Underdark cities and frolicking on the surface. The right head’s persona was more typical of dragonkind. She loved solitude, treasure, and magical items. This head was the brighter of the two, and had a sharp wit and a sarcastic tongue. While all dragons were dangerous and unpredictable, Zz’Pzora had a little insanity thrown in to make things interesting. Even so, Liriel had come to consider the dragon a friend. A large, dangerous, and unpredictable friend, perhaps, but no more treacherous than any of the young drow’s other associates.