Tangled Webs

by Elaine Cunningham

  “Blasphemy,” she hissed. “You dare to attack a symbol of Lloth with mere wizardry?”

  “You dare to speak of Lloth, you who worship Vhaeraun?” returned Liriel coldly as she opened one hand to display the holy medallion. “Oh, I know your tawdry little secret. I know also why you are in this place, and the ambitions that led you here. It is you who do not know me for what I am, or you would not have relaxed the mind shields that served you so well in Menzoberranzan!”

  Understanding crept over Shakti’s stunned face. “You are a priestess of Lloth? The Spider Queen has not abandoned you?”

  “Not yet,” Liriel replied grimly. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t be too quick to give up hope.”

  “Then I challenge you,” the other priestess returned, a weird light entering her crimson eyes. “Let us see once and for all who holds the true favor of Lloth!”

  Liriel shrugged. She stood, arms crossed, while the Hunzrin priestess chanted a fervent prayer, pleading for some sign of the goddess’s presence and favor. It was a common enough spell, one cast nightly in the temples of the great houses and the chapel of the clerical school, Arach-Tinilith. From time to time Lloth rewarded her faithful with a sign of favor, such as a skittering rush of spiders, the creation of a magic item, the appearance of an otherworldly handmaiden such as a yochlol and, rarely, a visitation by an avatar. On rare occasions, warring priestesses used the spell to face off in a duel. If Lloth ignored the contest, both priestesses were summarily put to death. But if one priestess was favored, she was accounted the winner and could demand death, dethronement, or worse for her vanquished rival.

  Never once in her greedy and ambitious life had Shakti desired anything so much as she craved this victory. She poured forth all her strength, all the force of her pent-up hatred and rage, into the clerical spell. Fueling her anger was the utter absence of concern—indeed, the seeming lack of interest—on Liriel’s beautiful face. Ever had it been so. What Shakti desired passionately had meant little to the Baenre princess, who seemed to take for granted that all things would go as she willed them. It would not be so this time, Shakti exulted as she felt the surge of dark power growing within.

  And yet …

  Shakti’s chanting voice fell silent as the summoned manifestation of Lloth took shape before her. Her prayer had been rewarded with the rarest, most powerful manifestation of Lloth’s power. Yet the young priestess did not count herself the victor. The form the Spider Queen had chosen to take was that of Shakti’s most hated rival. Lloth herself gazed at Shakti through Liriel Baenre’s golden eyes.

  Liriel raised hands that crackled with dark energy and pointed them at the stunned priestess. A wave of power surged forward and engulfed Shakti. There was a sharp, quick burst of light and sound, and then an arid silence, like that left behind after lightning’s strike. A wisp of sulphurous steam rose from the place where the lesser priestess had stood.

  Well done, applauded a voice in Liriel’s mind.

  The drow turned slowly, still thrumming with the waning power of Lloth, and faced Vestress.

  Shakti is dead? the illithid inquired.

  “Returned to the Abyss,” Liriel said in a voice that was not yet entirely her own. “She may well make her way home from there, for the priestesses of Lloth are adept at traveling the lower planes. Yet she is lost to you, illithid!”

  Vestress shrugged, a gesture ill-suited to her misshapen form. The loss is not so great. You will rule Ruathym for a time, amass what power you need, and then return to the Underdark. I have lost one drow and gained another; it is a fair exchange.

  Liriel did not comment. “The tapestry,” she demanded.

  Ah, yes. You are full of contradictions, drow. I find your obsession with freeing the enslaved sea elves most curious, especially considering the shawl you wear at your waist, Vestress said slyly.

  With a shrug, Liriel acknowledged the hit. She wielded the power of Lloth; she wore the token of an enslaved nereid. The illithid was taunting her, pointing out that Liriel’s methods were little different from those used by Vestress herself.

  So be it.

  The first, immobilizing blast of power took Vestress by surprise. Before the illithid could rally, before she could summon her own strength of mind and magic, the icy hand of Lloth closed around her.

  The illithid’s blank white eyes focused on the drow, and with the coarse and common power of physical sight Vestress at last perceived what her mental powers had failed to tell her: for the first time in centuries, Vestress had underestimated an opponent. She accepted her failure and waited for the killing strike to come.

  But this was not the way of Lloth, or the vengeful creature who channeled the dark goddess’s power.

  “You will stay here in Ascarle,” Liriel Baenre proclaimed in a voice that resounded with power. “We may yet have need of the information network you control. But you will stand here until the end of this day, beyond the reach of sword or spell, and watch the destruction of your army and the end of your plans for conquest.”

  And thus it was. Unable to move, unable to strike, Vestress watched helplessly as the first of the sea-elven invaders emerged from the magical portal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE BATTLE FOR RUATHYM

  Xzorsh pulled up short at the sight of the strange squid-faced creature and the grim expression on the face of his drow friend.

  Liriel pointed to a doorway on the far side of the chamber. “I found the sea elf spirits. They’ve been woven into a tapestry. Go through that room to the one beyond. Do not fear the illithid—she cannot harm you. Good luck.”

  The sea elf nodded. He waited until all his forces had poured through the portal and Liriel had slipped back into the pool to return to Ruathym. Xzorsh had hoped she would fight beside him, but he realized that a deeper loyalty commanded the drow’s heart. It was not in him to envy another, but he hoped Fyodor of Rashemen treasured what the gods had given him.

  Xzorsh retrieved the tapestry and then turned his full attention to the coming battle. It was difficult to ignore the wonders around him. All his life he had heard tales of lost Ascarle, and a part of him longed to explore the legend, to search for the lost treasures left by elves who had raised the crystal walls and imbued the city with such magic that he could feel it, even now.

  But the sea elf turned and strode purposefully from the room of marble and magic, leading his forces toward Ascarle’s slaves. When the slaves were free, and armed, he would turn them against the merrow who had captured and enslaved them. This evil must be routed from the seas, for the good of all peace-loving sea folk.

  The sea elves and their triton allies crept down the winding halls. The city was eerily silent, and their webbed feet made soft patting noises on the marble floors as they made their way toward the slave quarters. Weapons at the ready, they edged into the buildings and moved cautiously into the long halls that led past rows of caged prisoners.

  At first all went well. There were a few somnolent guards, but these were easily overcome by thrusts from the tritons’ three-pronged weapons. As the tritons stood watch, the sea elves set to work, with metal picks and small, keen saws, on the door locks and chains. Quickly they freed one room of slaves after another. Hope entered the eyes of even the most wretched of these, and they fell in behind their rescuers, gathering up weapons as they went from the bodies of the fallen sea ogres.

  A whisper of air moving over wings was the only warning of the coming attack. The invaders spun. Sweeping toward them from the far end of the corridor was a swarm of fearful creatures, swift and silent as manta rays but hideous beyond description. Some of the elves managed to throw themselves to the ground; others were seized in stony talons and carried away, struggling like mice in the claws of enormous owls.

  “Kapoacinth!” shouted Xzorsh, warning those behind him. His forces carried no weapons that could defend against gargoyles—creatures of animated stone. “Flee this place! To the portal!”

  But from the cor
ridors beyond came the clatter of weaponry and the triumphant, guttural shouts of many merrow. The sea elves had been caught in an ambush between two deadly forces.

  The elven ranger darted a glance up and down the corridors. Most of the slaves had been freed and were joining their rescuers in desperate battle. Only a few prisoners remained, but the entrance to that corridor was blocked by a trio of nine-foot sea ogres.

  Xzorsh drew his knife and raced toward the enormous creatures. Grinning horribly, they raised their spears and charged forward to meet the ridiculous challenge. With his free hand, the sea elf tore the drow’s throwing spiders from his belt and hurled them, first one, then the other, at the advancing merrow. The ranger’s aim was true, and two of the sea ogres went down at once, pawing frantically at the animated steel that burrowed deep into scale and flesh. Without missing a step, Xzorsh gutted the third merrow as he raced past.

  There was a ring of keys on a hook; these he took and quickly unlocked one door after another. These prisoners did not have to be told what to do; with eyes bright with battle-lust they charged toward the creatures that had enslaved them. Only once did Xzorsh pause, startled by the eerily familiar face of a tall Northwoman. But he set her free and pressed an ogre’s knife into her hands. She thanked him with a grim nod and strode purposefully toward the battle.

  The door of the last cage was already open, but the sea elf slumped within did not stir. Thinking the elf had been wounded, Xzorsh went in and placed a hand on his shoulder. With a lightning-fast stroke, the elf slashed a knife across the hand meant to support and comfort him.

  The ranger leaped back, staring with dismay into the leering face of his partner and friend.

  “You should have believed the drow,” Sittl said. He lunged again as he came to his feet, his dripping blade leaping for the ranger’s throat.

  Xzorsh parried the strike. “I did believe her, as I believed you until your own words proved you a liar.”

  “Unlikely,” sneered the malenti. “I made no mistake that a trusting fool such as you might notice.”

  “The dead child, the one found aboard the ship,” the ranger returned coldly. “You told me she was yours in order to gain my sympathy and thus cover a lapse in your facade. But I found the child’s true father; he fights at my side.”

  “I don’t see anyone with you at the moment.”

  With this taunt, Sittl advanced in a flurry of slashing blows. Xzorsh held him off, but his wounded hand was numb and his grip made slippery by his own blood. In moments, Sittl knocked the weapon from Xzorsh’s hand. A wide smirk spread across the malenti’s elflike face. “You do not know how many times I have longed for this moment,” he exulted.

  The triumphant smile disappeared as his head was jerked sharply back to strike the metal bar of the cage with a sharp thud. White hands deftly wrapped Sittl’s long, plaited hair around his neck. Holding the braid in both hands, the Northwoman leaned back hard, throwing the force of her weight behind the impromptu garrote. Although Sittl’s webbed hands tore at his treacherous braid, he could not dislodge it from his throat. His eyes bulged, and his tongue protruded, wagging in a grotesque and silent counterpoint to the Northwoman’s furious battle cry.

  Merciful Xzorsh picked up his knife and ended the creature’s life in one quick stroke. Then he and the Northwoman began to fight their way back toward their overwhelmed and retreating forces.

  Rethnor raised his eyeglass and gazed with satisfaction at the battle raging before him. The darkening sky was bright with flaming arrows and the leaping flames of burning ships. Somehow Ruathym had seen beyond the rumors of a raid and had mustered an impressive sea force to meet the invasion. Even so, a fleet of thirty Luskan warships could more than match the motley flotilla that came to meet them.

  Nearly as destructive as the fire, and almost invisible in the gathering darkness, were the two water elementals that surged and retreated, dealing swift blows to the Ruathen vessels and then disappearing into the waves. The water wraith, Iskor, was doing her work well. Rethnor smiled broadly as a dragon ship was capsized by the force and fury of an elemental’s attack.

  Then, before his astonished gaze, the sea stirred wildly, and an enormous serpentine creature rose from the waves and of the waves. The gargantuan water snake spoke in a roar audible even through the distance that separated Rethnor from the battle. The elementals responded at once. Acting in concert, the creatures lifted a Luskan warship from the water, upended it, and drove it prow-first into the sea. Rethnor waited, breath abated, for the ship to bob to the surface.

  It did not.

  And neither did the elementals reappear. The watery sea serpent, however, advanced upon the nearest of Rethnor’s ships. It dove over the ship and circled around, looping it twice, three times, in its enormous coils. When the ship was utterly engulfed, the creature began to squeeze; in moments the wooden ship splintered with a boom like that of summer thunder. The creature sank into the waves, drawing the ruined ship toward whatever watery hell had spawned its captor.

  Rethnor cursed bitterly. Such horrors could only mean the drow wizard was still alive, and more powerful than before. He trained his eyeglass toward the shore, drawn by a light shining high above on the rocky cliffs. There, blazing against the night sky, was a tiny, familiar figure limned with light and magic. The wizard floated in the air, her dark hands outstretched like the talons of a striking hawk.

  Well, there was one way to bring the thrice-damned elf wench to heel. The High Captain swept his eyeglass over the remaining warships. On one of these raged a battle too fierce to be natural: the berserkers of Holgerstead spent their fury against a hundred of Luskan’s finest fighters. And fighting beside the wild, yellow-braided warriors was a ferocious, dark-haired youth whom Rethnor knew only too well.

  A grim smile spread across the High Captain’s bearded face, and he signaled the helmsman to pull in close to the beleaguered warship. He would have his revenge, but first he would see what price the elf wench might be willing to pay for the young man’s life.

  Liriel floated high over the ruins of Inthar, her keen elven eyes taking in the battle raging below. To her surprise, her very presence seemed to have a rallying effect on some of the fighters. On a nearby ship, a scarlet-clad warrior pointed to her and shouted to his men that the Raven had taken flight, the better to guide the souls of their enemies into death. The drow recognized the voice of Glammad, First Axe of Hastor. Once she had saved his life from the sahuagin; twice he had spoken for her. Liriel was more than happy to even the score. She sent a stream of fireballs hurtling toward the warships that pressed in on either side of the ships from Hastor. The men cheered her wildly as the Luskan fighting ships exploded into smoldering kindling.

  The drow did not pause to savor this triumph. With wizardly spells she had summoned a water weird, a creature from the elemental plane that could seize control of water elementals. At her command, the serpentine creature had turned the elementals against one Luskan ship, then destroyed another. But the effort of keeping such a creature on this plane was draining; Liriel could feel herself slipping down toward the stony cliff. She quickly dispelled the water weird, on the condition that it take the other creatures back to the elemental plane with it. The sea serpent eagerly agreed and fled back to its watery home.

  But that did not solve the source of this problem: somewhere nearby was a creature powerful enough to command the beings of the elemental plane. Liriel had to seek out and destroy that creature. She unknotted the white shawl from her waist and shouted a command to the nereid who cringed in the water below. The creature emerged, gesturing wildly toward the shore nearby.

  Liriel looked, her amber eyes widening with surprise. Dancing along the shore and, like some delighted child, clapping her glassy hands at each new destruction was the strangest creature the drow had yet seen. Although shaped like a woman, the beautiful thing encased a bubbling fountain within her glossy, transparent skin. Liriel had read about water wraiths—they were flighty, capri
cious creatures, often acting as messengers for the gods—but none of these sources gave any hint as to how such creatures could be fought.

  Inspiration came to the drow in the form of a remembered party trick, one of the mischievous cantrips that Menzoberranzan’s dark elves loved to cast to tease and taunt each other.

  “Take my regards to Umberlee,” the drow murmured wrathfully. She cast a small spell and drew in a long, deep breath. Cupping her hands to her lips, Liriel sent a single note, as pure and high-pitched as that of an elven flute, soaring out over the waves.

  The water wraith looked up, her beautiful, glassy face contorted with surprise and pain. Her form began to shudder as the magically enhanced sound resonated through her. The bubbles within roiled frantically, building up in force and speed. Finally the creature exploded in a spray of water and glassy fragments.

  Liriel’s keening song ended in a burst of wild laughter. Even to her own ears, the sound held a touch of hysteria. She was nearing the limits of her power, and the battle was nowhere near its end.

  Even as the thought formed, the sound of clashing blades rang through the ancient stone keep below her. A handful of battered sea elves staggered out of the tower, only to fall under the surging charge of wave after wave of well-armed merrow.

  Liriel knew a moment’s despair. The battle for Ascarle had been lost; the invaders had broken through. The sea ogres swept down the hillside toward nearby Ruathym village, where no warriors awaited them. The drow had seen the destruction ogres could accomplish, had heard stories of how they treated the women and young ones who fell into their taloned hands. To prevent such a thing, she would do whatever needed to be done.

  Liriel’s shaking fingers fumbled for her obsidian pendant, and she steeled her will and numbed her soul to accept what she must once again become.