Tangled Webs (3 page)

The young man also felt at home among the crew. They seemed to accept him as one of their own, even while showing him immense deference. Fyodor thought he knew the reason for that. He had heard that in Ruathym, warriors were afforded great honor and high rank. It would not be unlike Liriel to mention his berserker talents in an attempt to gain passage on a Ruathen ship. Fyodor did not object to this; it was better that the crew was forewarned. Since the Time of the Walking Gods, when magic had gone awry and his battle frenzies became as capricious as the wind, he had taken every precaution he could to avoid bringing harm to those around him.

The first mate took his pipe from his mouth and pointed with it. “Captain’s coming,” he observed. “Got company, as usual.”

Fyodor looked in the direction Ibn had indicated. A huge, fairhaired man sprinted toward the ship, swinging a beefy fist back and forth before him like a scythe as he cleared a path through the crowd. Despite his size and his short, bandy legs, the captain set an incredibly fast pace. Behind him was Liriel, running full out, her slender limbs pumping and her white hair streaming back. Behind her roiled a swarm of knife-wielding kobolds.

“Step lively, my lads!” roared the captain as he swatted a bemused mongrelman out of his way.

His crew took this development stoically, going about their business with an ease and speed that bespoke frequent practice. Ibn cut the ropes securing the ship to the dock and then seized the rudder; the other men took their places at the oars. To Fyodors surprise, the Elfmaid shot away from the dock, well beyond the reach of the captain and his drow companion.

Before Fyodor could react to this apparent desertion, the captain skidded to a halt. As Liriel ran past, the enormous man seized the back ofher swordbelt with one hand, jerking her to an abrupt stop. With his free hand he gathered up a handful of her tangled hair and chain mail vest. Lifting the drow easily off her feet, the captain hauled her back for the toss. As Fyodor watched, slack-mouthed, the man heaved Liriel up and toward the ship.

The captain’s strength, combined with Liriel’s darkelven powers of levitation, sent the drow into impromptu flight. Hands outstretched before her, she hurtled toward the Elfmaid like a dark arrow, her eyes wide with wild delight.

Fyodor caught the drow’s wrists and immediately began swinging her around and around to defuse the force of their collision and to help slow her flight. With each circle, the drow lost a bit of momentum but none of her obvious enjoyment. The moment her boots touched the deck, however, Liriel tore free of Fyodor and ran over to clutch the railing.

“Hrolf!” she called out, her face twisted with dismay.

A startled moment passed before Fyodor realized that the word was a name, not a signal that the drow was about to become seasick. Liriel gazed at the dock where the captain had last stood. In his place a swarm of angry kobolds danced and hooted, growing rapidly smaller as the ship pulled away.

Wishing to ease her distress, Fyodor strode to Liriel’s side and pointed down into the dark water. Below them, swimming for the ship with strong, steady strokes, was the captain. “He dove in right after he set you aflight,” he explained.

Liriel nodded, and her lips curved in a smile of relief Then, in one of the abrupt changes of mood that Fyodor had come to know so well, she lifted her chin to an imperious angle and turned a lance-sharp glare upon the first mate. “What do you mean by this delay? Get the captain aboard at once!”

Ibn recoiled as if he’d been stabbed, but he was accustamed to following orders, and the drow female gave them with the force and conviction of a war chieftain. Before the mate realized what he was about, he’d already set the rudder and tossed a coiled rope over the rail.

The coil unfurled as it flew, and Ibn’s aim was true. Hrolf seized the knotted end and began to pull himself hand over hand toward the ship. In moments he scrambled over the rail to stand, dripping and triumphant, on his own deck.

“Good lad, Ibn,” he said heartily, slapping the mate on the back with a force that nearly sent the man sprawling. “The water gates lie ahead; be ready to raise her.”

But the mate had other things on his mind. “What do we want with her?” he said bluntly, tossing a dark glare and a curt nod at the drow.

Hrolf flung back one dripping braid and faced down the redbearded sailor. “This is Liriel, a princess in her own land and a wizard worth any ten I’ve seen this mooncycle!” he announced in a voice loud enough to reach every man on the ship. “She’s also a paying passenger. See to it you treat her with proper respect, or answer to me. And know this: the man who lays a hand on her loses it.”

A moment of stunned silence met the captain’s words. “But she’s an elf,” protested one of the men, voicing a typical Northman’s distrust of the fey folk.

“She’s a drow!” added another fearfully, for the dark elves’ vile reputation was known in a hundred lands.

“She’s a she.”

This last observation, voiced in dire tones, apparently summed up the crew’s protests. The men nodded and muttered among themselves, many of them forming signs of warding.

“Oh, stow your nonsense with the rest of the cargo!” Hrolf roared, suddenly out of patience. “All my days I’ve heard that a female aboard meant ill luck, but never have I seen a sign of it! Has yon lass caused us a moment’s trouble?” he demanded, pointing to the enormous figurehead.

“Not a bit of it; the elf maid brings good fortune,” one of the crew ventured thoughtfully.

“That she does,” the captain stated, and his voice rang out, as powerful and persuasive as that of a master thespian. “Never has a storm taken us unaware; never have creatures of the sea decided to make of us a midday meal! And what of the men who claimed the elf maid would bring us to grief? How many of those men sleep in Umberlee’s arms, and our time not yet come?”

The uniformly angry expressions on the Northmen’s faces wavered, fading to puzzlement or indecision. Hrolf, who apparently knew his men well, waited for the planted idea to take root. “I say it’s high time the Elfmaid was honored by one of her own,” he stated. “Besides, who but the black lass has the magic needed to take us up through the gates? With half of Skullport on my heels, d’you suppose the Keepers will send us through without question and blow us kisses to speed our way?”

There was no arguing with Hrolf’s logic, and the crew knew it. The Keepers were hired mages who raised ships though magical locks leading from the underground port to the Sea Caves—an impassable and rock-strewn inlet south ofWaterdeep-and from there to the open seas. These magical portals had been established centuries earlier by Halaster, a mighty wizard who’d left his insane stamp on nearly every corridor of the Undermountain, and to this day the gates were the only way to move ships to and from Skullport. Without the permission of the Keepers—or the aid of a powerful wizard-the Elfmaid would never sail beyond this subterranean bay. The crew could like it or not, but the drow female offered them their only chance of escape.

Liriel, however, was concerned with a more immediate problem. Three small ships, loaded with fighters, were being rowed with deadly determination for the Elfmaid. They gained steadily on the larger ship; battle seemed inevitable.

Fear, an emotion so new to Liriel that she had no name to give it, rose like bile in her throat. She was never one to recoil from a fight, but she knew that if Fyodor joined this battle, the dark waters would soon be warmed with blood. The drow could not permit this.

She spun to face Hrolf The rowdy captain had already taken note of the approaching threat, and his eyes glinted with anticipation. “Show me a place belowdecks where I might go,” she demanded. “Fyodor will come with me and stand guard, for I cannot be interrupted while spellcasting.” Hrolf’s eyes dropped to Fyodor’s dark sword, and a flicker of disappointment crossed his bewhiskered face.

“Do as we discussed, and all will be well!” Liriel added in a tone that did not invite or allow discussion.

Hrolf yielded with a sigh and a shrug. “Well then, lad, here are your orders: Let no man through the hatch until our wizard gives you leave.”

Fyodor nodded, hearing what the captain said, and what he implied. Hrolf was in command of this ship, and under ordinary circumstances a berserker would follow a commander’s orders to the death. The captain knew this and had phrased his words accordingly. Fyodor hoped, as he followed Liriel down a short ladder into the darkness of the hold, that he would be able to do as Hrolf commanded. The captain paused before dropping the hatch. “Good luck to you, lass. And you, lad-see that you take good care ofher.” He gave Fyodor a shrewd once-over and then a wink. “But then, I don’t have to be telling you that, now do I?” Hrolf dropped the hatch with a thud, and then came the grating sound of something heavy being dragged over to obscure the opening. Angry voices drew nearer, and Liriel and Fyodor heard the sharp ping! of loosed arrows. Above all rang Hrolf’s voice, shouting gleeful battle instructions to his men.

“I can’t concentrate with all that going on,” Liriel grumbled. “Come closer-sit down here beside me. I’m going to cast a sphere of silence. You don’t need to hear the battle - just watch the hatch and kill anything that tries to get close to me.”

Fyodor smothered a smile as he settled down on the wooden floor beside his friend. The drow’s brusque manner did not fool him for a moment. If pressed, she’d claim she was merely being practical; her pride in her darkelven ways was too strong for her to admit to sentiment. Practical, she certainly was. Fyodor did not yet know the crew well enough to discern defender from invader, and in the throes of battle frenzy he would fight until he died, or until no one stood to oppose him. Still, he could not resist the temptation to let Liriel know he saw her well-meaning sham for what it was.

“If I am to keep watch, I would do better with a light,” Fyodor said mildly.

Instantly the soft glow of faerie fire lit the room. Liriel cast him a sidelong, suspicious look, but if she perceived his gentle teasing she gave no indication. Getting down to business, she opened a small spellbook and then took from her spell bag the items she would need for the casting.

It was a difficult spell, one of the most advanced in the book of gate spells given her by her father, the mighty archmage of Menzoberranzan. It was also one of the most unusual, allowing a person or entity to journey piggyback through an established gate along with the rightful traveler. Liriel only hoped that a ship and its entire crew could be considered an entity.

She began the deep concentration that such powerful magic demanded. Her body began to sway, and her gesturing hands pulled power from the weave of magic and bound it to her will. Yet she remained intensely aware of the battle above-for despite her words, the magical silence she cast encompassed only Fyodor-and she listened for Hrolf’s signal. When the spell was cast, she sat immobile, her hands cupped around a sphere of summoned power as she waited for the precise moment to set it free. Finally the signal came: the quick pattern of stomps and pauses that she and Hrolf had prearranged. Another ship had entered the magic locks; it was time for the Elfmaid to join it.

The young wizard flung her hands high, releasing the contained magic. All at once the world shifted weirdly. Liriel was swept up in the rush and roar of falling water and the whirling colors of a rainbow gone mad. Her physical form seemed to melt away as her mind took on the chaos and complexity of a crowded room. The drow felt, individually and all at once, the thoughts and fears of every person on this ship and on the other ship as well. At that moment she knew every person’s name and could have said what each was doing. The multifaceted clarity lasted but a heartbeat before the many minds united in a single emotion: terror. This melting ofbarriers, this sudden and unfathomable sharing, was beyond anything that most of them had imagined possible.

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the spell was over. Liriel opened her eyes and was relieved to find herself and her surroundings whole-not joined board and sinew with the other ship and its crew. That was the risk in such a spell, even if there was but one wizard following another. Her father had warned her with stories ofwizards who had been permanently conjoined by this spell, only to go mad in the attempt to share one body between two minds.

Liriel reached out a single finger to break the sphere of silence that protected her friend, much as a child might pop a soap bubble. “It’s over,” she said, and a quick, eager smile lit her face. “Let’s go see the stars!”

Fyodor returned her smile with a heartfelt one of his own. He, too, had missed that sight during their sojourn in the tunnels surrounding Skullport. Still feeling somewhat dazed by the magical transport, he shouldered open the trapdoor and crawled up onto the deck.

Beneath a brilliant night sky, the men of the Elfmaid stood staring at the equally stunned faces of the crew of the ship that floated beside them, its rail near enough to touch.

Hrolf was the first to shake off the spell, bellowing at his crew to drop weapons and man the oars. Fyodor took his place at an oar, and soon the ship had pulled well away from its host. When it became clear that the other ship had no inclination to pursue, Hrolf set the sail and released the oarsmen to their rest.

Fyodor strode across the deck toward the place where Liriel stood alone in rapt contemplation of the stars. He found it oddly reassuring that someone who had spent nearly her entire life below ground could have a soul-deep

love for the sky and its many lights and colors. In moments like this, Fyodor could believe that he and the beautiful drow were not so very different after all.

Not far from Liriel stood the captain and mate, deep in discussion. Fyodor did not intend to listen, but Hrolf’s voice carried in the still night air like the call of a hunting horn.

“Well then, that’s one more port that won’t be glad of us for some time to come! Looks like we’ll be adding Skullport to the list,” said Hrolf.

“Looks like,” the mate agreed.

“But it was a stay to remember and a good fight to end it with!”