Windwalker (17 page)

But first she had to sort through the puzzling secret that had been entrusted to her. It would be rank foolishness to show herself at House Hunzrin before these matters were settled. She had a younger sister who would not hesitate to exploit the weakness that Shakti’s uncertain state presented.

Still wrapped in invisibility, Shakti walked through the city to the Baenre estate. As she neared the outer wall, she flipped back her concealing cloak and revealed herself to the guards. Magical wards surrounded the house like a moat, and it was better to come openly than to be caught approaching in stealth.

A squadron of guards surrounded her at once. They listened with narrowed eyes to her demand for audience and sent a runner to carry this message to the Matron Mother. In moments Triel’s response arrived: a floating disk meant to convey a visiting priestess with honor.

Shakti settled down on the conveyance and held her head high as she progressed through the several gates that warded the residence. She had no doubt that Gromph would hear of her arrival within the hour.

Resolutely she put that out of mind. She would need all her wits to deal with the subtle and treacherous Triel. Any distraction would be lethal.

The disk brought her to directly to the door of Triel’s audience chamber. Shakti dismounted on the driftdisk and began the long walk toward the matron’s throne. The chamber was huge, with high-vaulting ceilings and intricately carved walls. Each footstep echoed softly, the sound like that of stones dropped into deep wells. This approach was meant to intimidate, but knowing this did not lessen the effect in the slightest.

Triel watched her approach through narrowed crimson eyes. The diminutive priestess had augmented her mother’s throne with a gorgeously carved footrest. Shakti supposed it was less than dignified for a matron’s feet to dangle like a child’s when she sat in state.

She came to a stop at a respectful distance and sank into a low obeisance. The Baenre matron acknowledged Shakti’s reverence with a steady, unreadable gaze, which Shakti met with an equally unwavering stare. Looking directly into the Baenre female’s eyes, she announced, “Matron Triel, I have failed.”

For a long moment, silence ruled the chamber as Triel plumbed this strange pronouncement for hidden depths.

“You did not bring Liriel with you,” she said at last.

“I have not,” Shakti admitted, still on her knees. “Lolth has a purpose for the princess that I do not yet fully understand.”

The First Matron’s crimson eyes narrowed dangerously. “You presume to speak for Lolth?”

Shakti bowed her head. “I only repeat the words her handmaiden the yochlol spoke to me.”

She was rewarded with another silence—briefer this time but still potent. “Where did you encounter this handmaiden?”

“In the Abyss.”

Triel’s eyelids flickered. She gestured for Shakti to rise and take a seat. “Tell this tale from the beginning.”

The priestess settled down in the offered chair. “On your command, I gathered powerful allies and pursued Liriel. She also had surrounded herself with strength, and our forces met in a fierce battle.”

“Who allied with her?”

“Many. The humans of a distant island known as Ruathym and a band of sea elves.”

Triel sat bolt upright. “A daughter of House Baenre in alliance with faerie elves? What foul lie is this?”

“No lie,” Shakti maintained firmly. “If I wished to shape the truth to my benefit, would I not tell a tale more pleasing to your ears?”

The First Matron conceded this point with a curt nod and gestured for her to continue.

“Liriel fought her way into the stronghold of an illithid sorceress, ancient faerie elf ruins buried deep in the sea. She released the illithid’s sea elf prisoners and led them in battle. I myself would not have believed such an alliance possible had I not seen it.”

“You lost a battle to humans and faerie elves,” Triel summarized, her voice dripping with disdain.

“No,” Shakti responded calmly. “I lost to the power of Lolth.”

The matron’s tiny hands gripped the arms of her throne. “You have already proven incompetent. Beware of adding blasphemy to your faults!”

Shakti pressed on. “I challenged Liriel to nai’shedareth,” she said, naming the ritual combat between two priestesses to determine which had the greater favor of Lolth.

Triel settled down, and a sardonic smile curved her lips. “A bold move,” she sneered. “You are a high priestess, she is barely an acolyte!”

“She is of House Baenre, and I am not,” Shakti said bluntly. “My snake whip was slain, my spells turned aside.”

“The girl is not that powerful,” Triel said uncertainly.

“On her own, no. But she was made Zedriniset”

The heat slowly drained from Triel’s face. This word, one of the most sacred in the Drow language, was seldom spoken aloud. It was an honor and a power that every priestess secretly aspired to attain for herself and feared to see in another.

“You saw this.”

“Many did. Lolth’s power flowed through the Baenre daughter during the battle for Ruathym.”

The small priestess digested this. “Yet you challenged her.”

Shakti inclined her head in what she hoped was a suitably humble posture. “I was condemned for my arrogance to the Abyss.”

The matron considered these words for many moments, examining them for the layers of subterfuge and hidden intent common to all drow interactions. When she spoke, she addressed the most obvious question.

“Yet, here you are.”

“Here I am,” Shakti agreed. “I was condemned for attacking a Baenre, yet the Queen of Spiders knows my heart. The priestesses of House Hunzrin have ever been supporters of Baenre. I am your servant. To punish me too harshly might cast an ugly glare of light upon the smooth darkness of your path. Lolth’s handmaid tested me, and found me faithful. I was returned from the Abyss with signs of the goddess’s favor.”

Shakti reached into her robe and drew forth her five-headed snake whip. The skeletal heads rose, and then dipped in obeisance to the First Matron.

“This is the whip you yourself gave me,” she explained. “It was destroyed in battle with Liriel and restored by the power of Lolth during my sojourn in the Abyss.”

Triel regarded the undead weapon skeptically. “So you say, but any high priestess can animate the dead. You will have to be more convincing.”

“Lolth’s handmaid also gave me this as a token of the goddess’s highest favor to House Baenre and her wish that you prosper above all Houses.”

She handed Triel the soul-bubble. The matron gazed into it, but her eyesight was not the equal of Shakti’s.

The Baenre matron snapped a command to her guard. The males disappeared, to be replaced in moments by a score of well-armed females. These were Matron Triel’s personal guard, hand-picked for ferocity and personally enspelled for loyalty. The females formed two circles, one a few paces from Triel’s throne, the other enclosing Shakti.

At a nod from Triel, all the guards drew two weapons, which they crossed with those of the females on either side. A faint hum resounded through the room as protective magic surged through the ready steel. No magic could be cast from the circle, and none could endure within it.

Triel tossed the globe toward the nearby guard. It shattered before it hit the floor, exploding with a puff of glowing, greenish smoke. The smoke drifted off and stopped just short of the humming swords. Since it could not disperse, it was slow to fade. When it cleared, all gazed in astonishment at a tall drow female standing in the protective circle. Her eyes were dazed and her hair disheveled, but her face was unmistakable.

“Quenthel,” Triel said in a strange voice.

It was undoubtedly Quenthel Baenre, a powerful priestess slain years before. It could not be otherwise, for any attempt by any other drow to claim her form would be dispelled from the magical circle. Quenthel had died in battle, and her body had been returned to the city, where it was burned to ash according to the custom for honoring high-ranking priestesses. Lesser corpses were embalmed and stored, a resource to be called upon when nameless zombie troops were needed.

Burned to ash—and yet, here she stood. Quenthel was undeniably alive. There was no denying the clear sign of Lolth’s favor. A powerful priestess had been returned to House Baenre!

Lolth’s favor, indeed, mused Triel. One Baenre priestess returned from the dead, another favored as Zedriniset, a Chosen of the goddess!

With such powerful allies as this, Triel would never need to look far for enemies. And what of Shakti, who had been entrusted with so much honor and information by the Goddess Herself?

The Baenre matron hid these thoughts and dismissed her guard with a sharp flick of one hand. Then she turned to the two watchful priestesses, her gaze moving from one conspirator to the other—for such they undoubtedly were.

“How did you find your way out of the Abyss?”

The resurrected drow priestess stared at Triel for a long moment.

“I-I don’t… know,” she admitted and staggered as if she might faint. With sheer force of will she pulled herself erect. Her face took on something of the haughty mien Triel remembered.

Triel managed a smile, and said the only thing there was to say. “Welcome home, sisters.”

That night, Brindlor, magically disguised as a human dock worker, shouldered his way into a crowded, odorous tavern in the dock ward of Waterdeep. He scanned the crowd, looking for a sun-browned Northman with a red beard and hard, suspicious eyes.

He found the man seated alone at a small table near the kitchen door, his boots propped up on the only other chair at the table and his fierce glare daring anyone who ventured close to try to claim it.

Brindlor worked his way back to the captain. He leaned against the wall and snagged a mug from the tray of a passing wench—a deft bit of thievery that earned an admiring nod from the red-bearded pirate.

“Busy night,” Brindlor commented, speaking in the coarse language known as Common and flavoring it with the bluff accents of the wintry Northlands. He nodded at the nearby kitchen. “Too busy, I’m thinking, if’n they’ve taken to seating sea captains so close to the latrine.”

A flicker of amusement crossed the pirate’s face. “Sounds like you’ve et the chowder here.”

“Tried it. Couldn’t stomach the swill.” Brindlor patted his artificially ample belly. “Ah, well. This wouldn’t be the first time I made a meal of ale. And it’s right hungry I am!” He jingled his coin bag and grinned. “If I’m sitting, I’m buying.”

The pirate peered into his own mug and swung his boots off the second chair. Apparently he deemed the offer of free ale to be of greater value than the loss of his privacy.

“You know me as a captain,” he observed. “What else are you knowing?”

“Not much,” Brindlor said easily. “I worked the docks this morn, helped unload Narwhal. Saw you with the dockmaster, heard your name spoken as Ibn. They call me Wolfrich,” he said, offering a massive paw.

Ibn nodded in satisfaction at the Northman’s name and took the man’s hand. Neither of them spoke another word until the next round of ale went down, and the one after that.

In truth, Brindlor knew a great deal about Ibn. He was a native of Ruathym, a good seaman who possessed great pride in his heritage and an equally profound hatred for elves. He was a notoriously taciturn man who would never speak three words when one would do the job. There was one exception to this habit: Whenever Ibn came ashore, he indulged in a mug or two. And the more he drank, the more he talked.

“Met one of your boys,” Brindlor offered. “Leigaar. Tells a good tale, that one.”

A suspicious glare furrowed Ibn’s ale-flushed face. “What story’s he telling now?”

The disguised drow shrugged. “Nothing I’d credit as money-on-the-barrel truth, but a fine and fancy tale for all that. Something about a tapestry of souls and a sea elf guardian.”

Ibn made a sour face. “Sad to say, that’s plain truth.”

“Is that so.” Brindlor took a long, considering pull on his ale. “You know this sea elf?”

“Know him? Only too damn well. Name’s Xzorsh. Since the day I signed on with Hrolf the Unruly, the elf’s stuck to us like wet knickers. Got some notion about protecting the ship, him and the elves he commands. Hrolf’s gone below the waves and his ship with him, but the damn elf’s got himself another reason to follow me. A drow wench, if that don’t beat all.”

“Really.” Brindlor signaled for a fresh pitcher and poured them both another drink. “What would a sea elf be wanting with a drow wench?”

“Magic,” the sailor said shortly. “He fancies himself to be a web-fisted wizard, if that don’t beat all. The drow promised to find him a teacher.”

Brindlor leaned back in his chair and stroked his yellow-bearded chin. After a moment of silent contemplation, he sent a sidelong glance at Ibn. “This Xzorsh is nearby?”

“Stone’s throw, if’n you got a good arm. Swimming the harbor with the merfolk, last I heard.”

“Hmmm. He commands many elves?”

“How many, I couldn’t rightly say, but enough to turn a sea battle our way more’n once,” Ibn said grudgingly.

“Well, I surely do see your problem.”

Ibn earnestly tried to focus his blurry eyes. “You do?”

“A risky thing, handing any kind of weapon to a drow wench,” Brindlor observed. “I’ve had some dealings with the dark elves. They’ll all bad, mind you, but the females are the worst of the lot. They don’t do anything unless it serves a purpose. Chances are she has a use in mind for this Xzorsh and his sea elf friends.”

Ibn continued to stare at him with uncomprehending eyes. The drow suppressed a sigh. Perhaps he’d been over-generous with the ale.

“If it’s plunder they want, no pirate between here and Lantan could compete with magic-wielding sea elves,” he explained, “and no honest sailor could win a sea battle against them, if it came to that.”

Ibn considered this for a long moment.

“Of course, I understand how you’d be wanting to protect the sea elf, seeing how he’s a friend of yours.”

Ibn was suddenly grimly sober. “No friend of mine. My duty’s to the ship, and the men on her.”