Tangled Webs (43 page)

The wench was good, Liriel acknowledged with a touch of perverse admiration. She hoped her own performance, as she accepted Dagmar’s explanations and sent her on her way, was equally convincing.

Liriel waited until she heard the faint creaking of the roping that supported Dagmar’s mattress. She eased on her elven boots and cloaked herself in her piwafwi. Silent and invisible, she crept down the ladder into the main room of the cottage, then wriggled out an open window into the night.

The drow made her way swiftly to the barracks where Fyodor slept. She found his room and shook him awake. Acting on sudden impulse, Liriel crawled under the blankets and nestled into Fyodor’s arms. She poured out her story-beginning with her own self-doubts and fearful misgivings. With unfamiliar candor she admitted her fears about the dangers that her reluctant priestesshood held for her, and also for him. Fyodor held her as she spoke, and she felt in his physical strength a symbol of the steadfast honor that was like a lifeline to her. She spoke of this, too. Never had the proud and solitary drow poured forth her heart so completely. In its own way, it was a sharing equal to that they had known at the foot ofYggsdrasil’s Child.

At length she described the scene that had transpired in her bedchamber, and once again she laid out her accusations. This time Fyodor listened with a more receptive mind, but he was still slow to accept.

“It might have been as Dagmar said,” he ventured. “perhaps she did not mean to do you harm-perhaps the pillow did slip from her hands.”

“She was still holding it after I sliced it in half,” Liriel pointed out. “But even if she’d caught it as it fell, there is a more basic question: why did she come into my room in the first place?”

“Perhaps you did call out in your sleep.”

” ‘There are those who think, and those who dream,’ ” Liriel quoted softly. “You are forgetting something, something that Dagmar could not possibly know: drow do not dream.”

Fyodor was silent as he sorted through all that she had said. “Do what you must to unveil the traitor,” he said somberly. “I will help you where I can and try not to question your methods overmuch.”

In the dark hours before morning, the shaman’s daughter crept down to the shore and dragged her small boat off the beach. The familiar signal had been left the night before, the strange pattem of pebbles and shells indicating that once again Dagmar was required to meet with one of the creatures who held captive that which was dearest to her heart.

She hadn’t rowed far beyond the cove when a pair of slender, webbed hands seized the rim of her boat. Dagmar barely had time to draw in a startled gasp before the creature leaped in and seated himself across from her. The little boat rocked wildly as Dagmar stared at one of the sea elves her nets had recently ensnared. She recovered her wits quickly and dove for the fishing knife at her feet-a thin blade longer than her forearm.

But the elfwas faster still. He seized her wrist with one webbed hand and hurled her back onto her seat. “I like this no better than you do,” he said with cold disdain. “But there is news from Ascarle. Listen well, so I need not look at you any longer than I must.”

“At our last meeting, you promised vengeance against me for ensnaring you!”

“If I acted only to please myself, I would have slain you that day and relished the deed,” the sea elf responded. “But the powers of Ascarle wish otherwise. You do your job well enough, and the failure of the raid at Holgerstead is not laid upon you. In other matters, however, you have been too diligent. Leave off the kelpies; there are far too many in these waters. I myself dodged one—and the human she was in the process of drowning—0nly to be caught by another a few lengths away.”

The color drained from Dagmar’s face. “We were so close!” she whispered. “The day we caught you, if only we’d cast our nets farther out to sea, Hrolfmight yet be alive!” “A little late for regrets,” the elf taunted her. He reached into a sealskin bag and drew forth a small, folded object. “A token from your mistress. Plans have changed; you are not to destroy the drow and deliver her body to the sea. But the new shapeshifter still lives, and your mistress finds this most displeasing.”

Dagmar stared at the grisly object in the elf’s hand: a bloodstained lock of pale yellow hair, proof that her twinborn sister still lived.

Although all of Ruathym thought y graine had been lost in a sudden spring squall, the truth of the matter was that the two sisters had been waylaid by Luskan pirates. The cruel N orthmen had cast lots over the girls; y graine was chosen as hostage and Dagmar as spy. There was little chance their warrior kindred might rescue the girl, for y graine was held captive in a place far beyond the reach of men. Nor was there the possibility that Ygraine, although in captivity, might find her way to an honorable death. Dagmar had been shown a tapestry that held the tormented spirits of slain elves, so she might know what Ygraine’s fate would be should she fail to follow orders.

Dagmar’s gaze fell on the knife still clenched in one fist, the knife that had sent her betrothed husband-Thorfinn, the future First Axe of Ruathym-to his ignoble death, the knife that would have slain Fyodor of Rashemen and HoIgerstead, had he yielded to her that night. There were times when any man, even the greatest of warriors, was vulnerable to the quick thrust of a knife, a time when caressing fingers could count to the spot between the third and fourth rib, force the blade in, and pull the knife down. This and more she was willing to do, to end Y graine’s captivity;

She turned her eyes upon the sea elf seated across from her. Unlike most ofher people, she understood that the sea folk bore no special enmity against her people. She had been astonished to learn that this one was part of the plot against Ruathym, and that he was willing to implicate the elves in the island’s woes. More, he was willing to work with her to this end, even after she had unwittingly attacked him!

“I know why I must betray my people,” she said softly. “But what of you?”

The male responded with a smile of pure malevolence. “Like most of your kind, you are easily deceived by appearances. I am no more elf than you are!”

With these cryptic words, the apparent sea elf dove into the water and disappeared. Dagmar sat silent for a long time and then rowed back toward the shore. Her movements were slow, weighted down by the knowledge that many of her people would soon be dead. At least their deaths would be won in honorable battle, their place in the Northman afterlife assured.

For herself, Dagmar no longer held such hopes. Her soul was in the hands of her tormenters, just as surely as those of the unfortunate sea elves in distant Ascarle, who were locked for eternity in a prison made of wool and silk. But this no longer mattered to her. All that Dagmar valued was held captive, and she would do whatever it took to claim back what was hers.

Unknown to either Dagmar or Sittl, there were two witnesses to the secret meeting. Liriel and Fyodor sat silently nearby; their borrowed rowboat cloaked in a ghost-ship spell that the drow had learned during her days in Ruathym’s library.

“Convinced?” she demanded.

Fyodor nodded somberly. “You were right about all. We must go to Aumark with this news at once.”

But to his surprise, the drow shook her head. “Not yet. We know Dagmar is playing the traitor, but at whose behest? Luskan, almost certainly, but I have long suspected the city does not act alone. There is another layer to this conspiracy; we must go deeper before we know the true scope of the danger facing Ruathym. I must know about this Ascarle that the sea elf—0r rather, the malenti-mentioned.”

As she spoke, Liriel remembered words that the nereid had said: the kelpie sprouts were grown in a wondrous place far below the sea. Perhaps it was time to take the nereid up on her offer.

“Judging from what I have read,” Liriel began, “the warriors of Luskan do not care much for magic. It seems likely to me that all the creatures of the elemental plane of water are commanded from this Ascarle—including the nereids. I will compel my slave to take me there. 1’l1 scout their forces, do what I can to uncover their plans, and bring back enough proof to force that idiot Aumark to pay heed! But I must go alone.”

Fyodor did not like any of this, and he and the drow held long and heated discussion on the matter. Finally Liriel reminded him that he, like Wedigar, must bide his time and accept risks for the greater good—even when they contradicted his own sense of honor and duty.

“I like it not when you quote my own words back at me,” Fyodor grumbled.

The drow tossed him a wicked grin, and they rowed in silence toward the shore of Inthar.

The nereid responded to Liriel’s questions with great glee. Ascarle, the creature claimed, was a subterranean city full of ancient treasures and wondrous magic. When Liriel asked about sea elves, the nereid nodded eagerly. “Yes, there are many there, a hundred, perhaps more. The armies of Ascarle capture them as slaves.”

Liriel wondered briefly how Xzorsh would respond to this news-and the knowledge that his “friend” had a part in it. “Let’s assume I want to go to Ascarle,” the drow said. “How would you take me there?”

“You cannot go directly. There is a portal but no mortal may pass. My powers allow me to take you to my home plane, and from there to Ascarle.”

Something in the nereid’s words struck the drow as familiar. They were very like words spoken not long ago, by a voice from beyond the grave. Liriel’s eyes darted to the tower that loomed over the cliffs of Inthar, and her thoughts returned to the strange encounter with the banshee who guarded it.

After giving instructions to the nereid that she was to remain silent and out of sight once they reached Ascarleor suffer damage to her soulshawl-Liriel agreed to take the voyage. First, however, she encloaked herself in her piwafwi. There was no telling what she might encounter in the undersea stronghold. It did not escape Liriel’s notice that the sly nereid seemed a little too eager to take her there.

Liriel had traveled through magical portals many times, but none were quite like this. The moment the nereid took her hand, they were shot through a tunnel of effervescent energy. For a brief, exhilarating moment, Liriel felt as if she were inside a bottle of sparkling wine that had been shaken, then suddenly uncorked.

She emerged, wet and tingling from head to toe, in a marble pool. Colorful fish swam among the water flowers, and a delicate fountain played softly in one corner. The drow looked deep into the water. There, barely visible, was the face of the nereid. She gave a sharp tug on the soulshawl’s fringe by way of reminder, and the nymph disappeared from sight at once.

The drow adjusted her piwafwi and climbed over the low marble wall and surveyed the room beyond-a vast, gleaming chamber with a vaulted ceiling. The walls and floor were of inlaid marble, and several pools and fountains sang in a melodic murmur. Dominating the room was a raised platform upon which sat a massive throne of pale purple crystal. The thing brought to mind an image of the Baenre throne. The matron of the First House of Menzoberranzan sat on an intricately carved wonder of black stone, within which writhed the spirits of Baenre victims. Liriel hoped that whatever creature ruled this place was less venal than her dear aunt Triel, the current Matron Mother.

Liriel cast a quick spell to dry herself, for invisibility would be of limited value if she left behind a trail of wet prints. As silent as a shadow, she wandered through the rooms of the vast palace. The entire building was constructed of marble and crystal, decorated with ancient, priceless statues and urns filled with exotic plants. Beyond the palace lay an entire city, the buildings connected by airfilled walkways and tended by vacant-eyed slaves.

With every step, Liriel grew more certain that in this undersea city lived Ruathym’s true enemy. Whoever ruled here possessed too much wealth and power for it to be otherwise. No such beings could content themselves in Luskan’s shadow. On swift and silent feet she walked through the magic-filled greenhouse where the kelpie sprouts were grown, through storehouses filled with supplies, through armories well stocked with weapons. At last she made her way toward the humbler buildings, assuming these would house the city’s soldiers, as well as the slaves of which the nereid spoke.

Liriel was well acquainted with slavery. It was a fact of life in Menzoberranzan. Slaves were the source of most of the drow’s battle fodder and supplied nearly all the city’s menial labor. In her first meeting with Fyodor she’d learned Rashemi did not enslave each other. He clearly abhorred the very mention of slavery, but she herself had never given much thought to the matter. Some people were drow, some were humans, some were ogres, and some were slaves. It was that simple. But never had Liriel considered the slaves themselves, rather than the useful functions they performed. Here, surrounded by hundreds of listless, nearly lifeless beings, she could do nothing else.

As the drow walked through the cramped and crowded quarters, she noted that all the slaves-sea elves, humans, even some of the merrow that apparently guarded themwere held in tight control. Some sat like animated corpses, with slack faces and vacant eyes, moving only upon the command of one of their sea-ogre guardians. Others, whose spirits had apparently been broken, were shackled only by the deep hopelessness that emptied their eyes and bowed their shoulders. There were, however, a few who still resisted the powers that ruled Ascarle.

Liriel watched as a pair of merrow dragged a struggling sea-elf female down a hall. She followed them into a long corridor lined with cages. Into one of these the merrow tossed the elf, informing her that she would be fetched again when her skills were needed. The drow crept down the hall, taking stock of these hearty prisoners. These were the strongest, those who might be persuaded to turn against their captors when the time came. Suddenly Liriel stopped before one cell, stunned and enlightened.

The young woman pacing the tiny cell was the mirror image of Dagmar: the same strong, beautiful face, the distinctive pale gold hair. Liriel understood at last why the Ruathen woman had turned traitor.