Tangled Webs

by Elaine Cunningham

  Rethnor determined that come what may, word of this attack could not reach Ruathym. Granted, the island’s people were unlikely to unravel the tangled plot he’d woven to enmesh them, but Rethnor was not willing to give them a chance.

  “Who steers the ship?” he demanded. “Where are we bound?”

  “One of the sailors—I know not his name. Rest easy; we sail for Luskan,” the physician replied in a soothing voice.

  Rethnor threw aside the coverlet and rose to his feet. He thrust aside the protesting healer and made his way up to the starlit deck and confronted the astonished tillerman.

  “Turn her about,” he ordered in a voice that forbade argument. “Set a direct course for Trisk.”

  The sailor blinked but promptly relayed the order to the scant remaining crew. None of the men openly questioned Rethnor—to do so at the best of times would have meant their deaths—but to a man they wondered whether the sword that had severed the High Captain’s hand had also stolen his wits.

  Trisk was one of two large islands in the distant cluster known as the Purple Rocks. The islands lay west of Gundarlun, and past the warm waters of the River. Ice floes were still a hazard at this time of year, but even more fearsome were the strange and deadly sea creatures who were said to lair near the islands.

  These stories were told only on solid land, preferably far from the sight of the sea and in the warm security of a crowded and firelit tavern. The tillerman did not want to remember those stories now. He was a Northman, and he did not fear to die. He just wished he could be certain there was a path between the mead halls of Tempus and the bellies of the sea creatures that surely awaited them.

  Liriel slept through that night and well into the next day. She awoke with a start, surprised to see sunlight pouring in through the portal and Hrolf keeping vigil beside her cot. He grinned broadly when he saw her eyes upon him.

  “It’s glad I am to see you awake, lass! Lie still, now,” he admonished her as she struggled to sit up.

  “The lad is well enough, but sleeping,” Hrolf continued, guessing what her first question might be. “He took a few cuts, none of them past stitching, but tired himself out something fearful. I’ve lived on Ruathym all my days and seen berserkers in frenzy many a time, but never anything to equal that!” he said with awe.

  “It gets worse each time,” Liriel managed to say.

  Hrolf nodded, his jovial face suddenly very somber. “He doesn’t have many more like that in him, does he?”

  The drow shook her head. Her eyes drifted shut, but not before the pirate noted the uncharacteristic despair in their amber depths.

  “What do you plan to do about it, lass?” Hrolf asked softly. “I figured some time back that you’re looking to Ruathym for answers. Might be that I can help you find them.”

  “It’s a very long story,” Liriel muttered.

  Hrolf folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. “You got until moonrise to tell it,” he said calmly. “The lads bade me keep you here till then. They’re working on a surprise for you.”

  “Carrying out the verdict from the Thing?” Liriel inquired with a touch of bitterness.

  The captain grinned. “You might say that. But it’s naught to fret about, trust me on that. Now, let’s hear your tale.”

  Trust was not something that came easily to the drow, but Liriel found comfort in Hrolf’s bluff assurances. Indeed, she had not realized until this moment how fully she’d come to trust the pirate. Without hesitation she told him the story of the Windwalker. Stolen from one of Rashemen’s Witches, the amulet was an artifact from some ancient time, its magic little understood even by the powerful Witches who had worn it over the years. She told of the series of events that had introduced her to rune lore, the ancient magic shared by ancestors of Ruathym and Rashemen, and the story of how she’d come to possess the amulet. Finally, she told him of the quest that drew both her and Fyodor to Ruathym. The Windwalker was crafted for two things: to store “place magic” for a time, and to carve a newly learned and unique rune upon the ancient and sacred oak that stood on Ruathym. Liriel’s innate drow powers and ready spells attested to the Windwalker’s potency. She hoped that the journey to Ruathym—the lessons she learned, the trials she endured—would form the needed rune in her mind and heart that would grant her permanent possession of her dark-elven magic, and Fyodor control over his berserker strength.

  “I’ve heard tell of ancient rune quests,” Hrolf observed when at last she paused for breath. “Let’s say the shaping of the rune does come to you. Do you know how the casting of it should be done?”

  Liriel shook her head. “I know a lot about wizardly magic, but this is completely different.”

  “Might be that I can help you there,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re right in saying that much about rune lore has been forgotten, but bits and pieces of the old ways can still be found if you know where to look. Some in my family still pass down the old tales.” He paused and gave Liriel a grin and a wink. “You might ha’ noticed I don’t go about things the way most people seem to think I ought. That current runs deep in my family. I got a cousin, a good friend since we was boys, calls himself a shaman. Him and me will have a sit-down and talk it out, see what can be done for you and the lad.”

  The drow nodded her thanks, but the despair did not fade from her eyes. “If we make it to Ruathym in time,” she said softly.

  Hrolf considered this. “You know,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about the plan to stop by Gundarlun. Herring fishing is nasty work. I’d just as soon do without it this spring. We’ve provisions enough to take us to Ruathym, and our trade goods won’t spoil before the next trip. So how about we sail straight for home?”

  Liriel’s startled gaze flew to the pirate’s face. “You would do that for us?”

  “That and more, and don’t you be looking so surprised about it!” The pirate reached out and gently cupped her chin in his massive paw. “You’re a right smart lass, but you’ve yet to learn a thing or two. You and the lad have stood by me, and the Elfmaid, time and again. Don’t you be thinking I’ll soon forget it.”

  Hrolf gave her cheek a gentle pat and then sat back. “If you’re feeling up to visitors, there’s someone powerful eager to talk to you.”

  Liriel lifted an inquisitive brow.

  “Xzorsh,” the pirate responded, grinning broadly. “The elf’s been swimming alongside since sunrise. Got something for you, he says, and won’t give it into any hand but yours. I’m thinking that he’s a bit taken with you, lass.”

  Liriel responded with a derisive sniff.

  “Well, why not? He’s a likely-looking lad,” Hrolf teased, “and you with a fondness for swimming!”

  “If I thought I could hold my breath long enough to make it worth my while, I might be tempted,” Liriel responded wryly. “But I might as well see what he wants.”

  Still grinning, the captain left the cabin and clopped up the ladder to the deck. A few moments later, Xzorsh came quietly to the door, a familiar bag in his webbed hands.

  “Your magic crabs,” he said, placing the still-wet bag on the floor. “They are all there.”

  The sea elf looked as if he wished to say more, so Liriel waved him into the room’s only chair. There were things that she, too, wished to discuss.

  “Was it hard to find the throwing spiders? The magic crabs,” she amended, remembering the name Xzorsh had given them.

  “Not too hard. I often search lost ships for items of worth,” the elf said eagerly. “I am considered skilled at such tasks and often find things useful for trade.” He reached for his belt and unclasped a bracelet attached there—a heavy gold band of ancient design set with large oval sapphires. He offered the bauble to Liriel. “Would you take this in exchange for the knife you lent me? And would you name a price for one of the magic crabs? Or other weapons of magic, if you have them to spare?”

  Liriel waved away the gaudy bauble. “Take the knife, and welcome,” she said absently.
“I’ve a dozen like it. As for the magic crabs, it so happens that I do have a price in mind.

  “Before I was tossed overboard,” she began, “I saw enough of the battle to recognize which man led the attack. A big man, dark-bearded, left-handed. My friend Fyodor fought him and cut off his sword hand. It went into the sea. Find the severed hand and bring it to me.”

  A look of horror crossed the sea elf’s face. “What could you want with such a thing?”

  “Can you get it or not?” Liriel asked impatiently. She had her reasons, but she certainly didn’t intend to speak of them. By Lloth’s eighth leg, thinking about them was bad enough!

  During her short career in Arach-Tinilith, Liriel had learned that Lloth’s priestesses possessed spells to rival those of the most powerful necromancers. Even if the dark-bearded man still lived, his hand was certainly dead, and there might be answers she could get from it, powers that she could wield over him. The needed spell was powerful, and as usual the risks were correspondingly great. Liriel was not certain she could control such a spell even if Lloth chose to grant it.

  “It is possible that I could find it,” Xzorsh admitted. “But the sea is full of creatures, and most likely a severed limb has been …”

  “Eaten,” the drow finished curtly. “Well, do your best. I’ll make it worth your time. In fact, why don’t you take a couple of the magic crabs with you now as advance payment? The rest we’ll negotiate upon your return.”

  Hearing the dismissal in her words, the sea elf claimed his treasure and rose to leave. He paused at the door. “I heard of your attack on Ibn. They said he found you communing magically with the dead elves. Can you tell me what you learned?”

  “Nothing,” she said flatly. “The spirits were—gone. Not ‘gone’ as in dead and moved on to whatever afterlife the elves might have had, but trapped. I can’t describe it better than that.”

  The sea elf pondered this, his face deeply toubled. “What can be done?”

  “Get the damned hand,” Liriel repeated emphatically. When the male did not look convinced, she added, “Doesn’t it seem strange to you that three ships and nearly two hundred fighters came after a small fish like the Elfmaid? They wanted something from us, and they knew enough about us to bring a large fighting force. I don’t think they were after Hrolf’s cache of Neverwinter clocks.”

  Xzorsh stared at her. “The attack was prompted by the slain sea folk?”

  “It’s possible. Once we find out who those men were and what they’re up to, we have a chance of finding out what happened to your people. For that,” she concluded testily, “I need that hand.”

  The sea elf nodded as he absorbed this. “Forgive me, but I do not understand why you trouble yourself with the problems of sea folk.”

  The drow shrugged, not having any reason to give that she herself understood. When she offered no explanation, Xzorsh suggested one.

  “I have heard many grim tales about the dark elves. You are not at all what I expected of a drow. It seems to me that I have been taught in error.”

  A vivid image flashed into Liriel’s mind—the inevitable result that would occur if this noble-minded but utterly naive sea elf ever encountered one of her dark kindred. In a heartbeat, she snatched a handful of throwing knives from under her mattress and hurled them in rapid-fire succession at the too-trusting elf. The blades bit deeply into the wooden door, tracing a dangerously close outline around the startled Xzorsh.

  “You are too slow to think and too quick to trust,” she snarled at him. “Now get out, and return only when you can bring me what I want!”

  The ranger ducked out of the room and disappeared. With a sigh, Liriel fell back onto her pillow. It was a necessary thing, but she had not enjoyed doing it.

  As he swam back toward the site of the recent battle, Xzorsh could not rid his mind of the drow’s words. There was much truth in them, he admitted. He was ever one to see things as all good or all evil, qualities that he considered as distinct and separate as sea and sky. The drow had fought for Hrolf and fought well, and she had shown concern over the fate of the slain sea folk. This had banished Xzorsh’s doubts and established her in his mind as a friend to be trusted. She was right in saying that he thought too little and trusted too much.

  On the other hand, if Liriel truly was what she wanted him to believe of her, why had she bothered to point any of this out to him?

  Such thoughts continued to trouble Xzorsh throughout the day and well into the next night. Then he came upon the charred ruins of the ship that Liriel’s magic had set aflame, and the remains of the vessel that he himself had scuttled, and he had no more time to devote to such musings.

  The task the drow had given him was difficult. Many were the bodies trapped among the wreckage, and sifting through them for a single, severed hand was grim and dangerous work. Xzorsh had no way of knowing what other scavengers might have been drawn to the wreckage, or what creatures might even now be watching him.

  So he went about his work quickly, ignoring the treasure in weapons and jewelry and concentrating on the macabre prize that the drow had commissioned. To his astonishment, he found what he sought. Entangled in a web of torn lines was a large, severed left hand. Dark hairs covered the back of it, and two fine rings decked the fingers. Xzorsh pocketed these rings—he could use them for trade—and placed the hand in a small bag.

  Although intent on his discovery, Xzorsh quickly sensed the dark figures that emerged stealthily from the wreckage. There were four of them: hideous, man-shaped creatures with thick scale-covered hide and webbed hands and feet. They were merrow—aquatic cousins of ogres, but faster and more fierce than their land-dwelling kin. These four were an elite force; all had small ivory horns protruding from their foreheads, the mark of the most powerful males. Keen black tusks curved up from their underslung jaws, and they were armed not only with their black talons—the traditional weapon of the merrow—but also with human-made spears and even the silvery trident of a triton.

  Xzorsh reached over his shoulder for the short spear strapped to his back and awaited the attack. As he expected, all four came at him in a swimming charge, their weapons leveled at him.

  The sea elf waited for the last possible moment. Then he twisted, agile as an eel, in a downward circle that took him below the reach of the weapons. As he went, he thrust out with his spear. He felt the impact, then the sudden softness as the point plunged through the merrow’s scaly armor to the flesh below.

  The three surviving creatures dropped their weapons and closed in, taloned hands reaching down for him and jaws flung open wide in preparation for rending bites. Xzorsh snatched at the trident as it floated down past him and braced the long handle against his hip. The lead merrow backpaddled fast to keep from impaling itself on the weapon. This was the opportunity Xzorsh wanted; he leaped upward, thrusting out high and hard.

  The trident’s middle prong sank deep into the merrow’s unprotected throat and up into its head. Xzorsh pushed until the prong met the back of the creature’s skull; then he whipped his feet forward and planted them against the dying merrow’s chest. He shoved with all his strength, pulling the trident free and sending himself hurtling back through the water, beyond reach of the grasping hands and snapping jaws.

  Xzorsh whipped the trident around to face the two remaining sea ogres. The creatures were more cautious now; circling their prey like humanoid sharks, they waited for an opening.

  The sea elf thought frantically. He had seldom encountered merrow—most of the creatures lived in fresh water, and the few that had adapted to the sea usually laired in caves and shallow waters. Stupid creatures who lived only to kill and to eat, merrow sometimes fell in with more powerful beings who offered opportunities for murder and plunder beyond the ogres’ limited imagination, or payment in glittering trinkets. Xzorsh had no idea who commanded these merrow, but one of them carried the weapon of a triton—a creature from the elemental plane of water. The implications of this were utterly beyond the sea e
lf’s ken, and suddenly he wished the drow were with him. If anyone he knew could make sense of the twisted alliance this suggested, it would be she.

  A quick, searing pain slashed across the sea elf’s shoulders. Xzorsh arched backward, teeth gritted against the sudden agony. One of the merrow had managed to get within talon’s reach. The sea elf whirled and stabbed out with the trident, but his attacker had already retreated beyond range. Xzorsh’s fighter’s instinct kicked in, and he looked back over his shoulder to find himself nearly face-to-fang with the second merrow. The elf pushed back hard with the butt of the trident and caught the merrow in the gut. The silver handle thudded against the creature’s scaled abdomen, pushing the merrow away and buying Xzorsh a moment’s time.

  The sea elf reached for one of the drow’s magic crabs and tore it free from the braided reed that secured it to his belt. He darted under the merrow’s grasping hands, twisting around to swim up behind it. With a quick one-two move, he placed the crab-shaped object between the merrow’s shoulder blades with one hand, and with the other hand punched down hard. The barbed legs sank deep into scales and flesh, then began to move as the enchanted weapon dug its way through.

  The merrow spun to face the sea elf, its hideous face contorted with astonishment. Its fanged mouth opened again and again in grating, bubbling screams as the magic crab tore through its chest. The crab burst free in a spray of blood, a still-beating heart clinging to one of the barbed legs. When it met no further resistance, the weapon became inanimate metal once again.

  Xzorsh snatched up the fearsome thing, brandishing it in the face of the last merrow. The creature halted its attack, regarding the unexpectedly resourceful sea elf cautiously. Then it turned and fled.

  The ranger watched the merrow go, relishing thoughts of the report that the creature would give to its unknown commander. Let them know, Xzorsh exulted silently, that magic has come once again into the hands of the sea folk!

  Patience was not among Liriel’s strengths, and she had a good deal to say about Hrolf’s insistence that she stay abed until moonrise. The captain merely laughed at her diatribes, promising her that the price of waiting would be paid in full.